Wilhelm Bodewin Johann Gustav Keitel (22 September 1882 – 16 October 1946) was a German field marshal (Generalfeldmarschall) and a senior military leader during World War II. He was one of Adolf Hitler's close military advisers. As head of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (High Command of the Armed Forces) and de facto war minister, he was one of Germany's most senior military leaders during World War II. At the Allied court at Nuremberg he was tried, sentenced to death, and hanged as a war criminal.
Wilhelm Keitel was one of nearly two dozen[1]German officials who was captured by the Allies at the end of World War II. The Allies sought to try Keitel and the other men for war crimes. These plans were stopped twice by the German Freedom Front, first in November 1945, when the GFF destroyed the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg[2] and second in 1946, when the GFF destroyed the American residency zone in Frankfurt with a radium bomb.[3]
In 1947, the Soviets decided to try the officials in their zone. The GFF prevented this by crashing a plane into the courthouse, killing all the lawyers and judges, but leaving the accused unharmed.[4]
On 19 February 1943, Wilhelm Keitel was present in the Ukraine when Erich von Manstein shot Adolf Hitler dead, after Hitler had berated Manstein for not pushing forward with an offensive. Manstein and Paul von Kleist immediately held at gunpoint Keitel and Alfred Jodl, the other Hitler loyalist present.[5]
