Alfred Jodl

1. Lead

Alfred Jodl (10 May 1890 – 16 October 1946) was a German general and, from 1939 to 1945, Chief of the Operations Staff of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW), the High Command of the Armed Forces, making him, after Hitler himself, the officer most directly responsible for the planning and direction of German military operations in the Second World War. Born at Würzburg in Bavaria, the son of an army officer, he entered the Bavarian army as an artillery officer in 1910, served on the Western and Eastern Fronts in the First World War, and rose through the Reichswehr to become, in 1935, chief of the National Defence Department in the War Ministry. In August 1939, on the eve of the invasion of Poland, he was appointed Chief of the Operations Staff of the OKW, a post he held until the end of the war, and in that post he was present at almost every major military conference, he drafted the directives for the invasions of Denmark, Norway, France, Yugoslavia, Greece and the Soviet Union, and he signed the orders that led to the murder of prisoners of war and of civilians. On 7 May 1945, he signed the instrument of unconditional surrender of the German armed forces at Reims, and he was tried by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and hanged on 16 October 1946.

Jodl’s career raises the question of the responsibility of the staff officer, a question that is distinct from the question of the responsibility of the commander in the field. Jodl did not command troops in battle, and he did not personally order the murder of prisoners or civilians; but he planned the campaigns in which those murders took place, he drafted the orders that authorised them, and he was present when Hitler decided upon them. His defence at Nuremberg was that he was a soldier who obeyed orders, that he had no power to oppose Hitler, and that he had tried, in private, to moderate the criminal orders he was given. The Tribunal rejected that defence, holding that Jodl had not only transmitted criminal orders but had himself helped to formulate them, and that a staff officer who knowingly participates in the planning of a war of aggression and in the murder of prisoners and civilians cannot plead obedience as an excuse. His case, like that of his superior, Wilhelm Keitel, established the principle that the staff officer is as responsible as the commander, a principle that has since become a cornerstone of international law.

2. Key Facts

Born	10 May 1890, Würzburg, Kingdom of Bavaria, German Empire
Died	16 October 1946 (aged 56), Nuremberg, Germany (executed)
Nationality	German
Role / Office	Generaloberst (Colonel General); Chief of the Operations Staff of the OKW (1939–1945); Hitler’s principal operations officer
Known for	Chief of the Operations Staff of the OKW; drafter of the directives for the invasions of Norway, France and the Soviet Union; signatory of the Commando Order (1942); signatory of the surrender at Reims (7 May 1945); convicted and executed at Nuremberg
Spouse / Family	Irma von Bullion (married 1913, died 1944); Luise von Benda (married 1945); brother Ferdinand Jodl, also a general
Military rank	Generaloberst (Colonel General, from 1944)

3. Early Life and Education

Family and Childhood

Alfred Josef Ferdinand Jodl was born on 10 May 1890 at Würzburg in Bavaria, the son of Alfred Jodl, an officer in the Bavarian army, and Anna Hub, the daughter of a schoolteacher. He was the eldest of several children, and he grew up in the world of the Bavarian officer corps, a world of barracks, parades and regimental tradition that left him with a lifelong attachment to the army as an institution. His father, who later rose to the rank of colonel, was a strict and demanding man, and Alfred, who was a diligent pupil, grew up in a household in which discipline, duty and service to the King of Bavaria were taken for granted. He attended the Gymnasium at Würzburg, where he studied the classical curriculum, and in 1910, at the age of twenty, he entered the Bavarian army as a Fahnenjunker, an officer cadet, in the 4th Field Artillery Regiment at Augsburg. The choice of the artillery, rather than the more prestigious infantry or cavalry, was significant: the artillery was the technical arm of the army, and it attracted officers who were methodical, mathematical and interested in the science of gunnery, qualities that Jodl possessed in full measure.

The Bavarian Officer Corps

The Bavarian officer corps into which Jodl was born was distinct from the Prussian officer corps, and it shaped him in ways that remained visible throughout his career. Bavaria, which had been a kingdom within the German Empire, had its own army, its own traditions and its own officer corps, and its officers were, by Prussian standards, more relaxed, more Catholic and more attached to their King than to the Emperor in Berlin. Jodl, who was a Bavarian by birth and by temperament, absorbed the values of the Bavarian officer corps: loyalty to the King, a belief in the army as a professional institution, and a suspicion of Prussian arrogance. He also absorbed the habit of the staff officer: to plan carefully, to value detail, and to obey the orders of his superiors without question, a habit that would define his whole career, and that would, in the end, be the quality that made him indispensable to Hitler and that led to his execution.

Education and First Service

Jodl was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the artillery in 1912, and he spent the years before the First World War in regimental service, learning the practical business of gunnery and of staff work. When the First World War broke out in August 1914, he was serving as a battery officer on the Western Front, and he was wounded in the leg by shrapnel in September 1914, an injury that left him with a permanently weakened leg. After his recovery he was transferred to staff work, serving as a staff officer in the 7th Bavarian Infantry Division on the Western Front and then on the Eastern Front, and he spent the rest of the war on the staffs of divisions and corps, learning the business of planning, of supply and of administration. He was awarded the Iron Cross First and Second Class, and he ended the war as a captain, a staff officer of solid but unremarkable reputation. The war taught him, as it taught most staff officers, the importance of organisation and of detail, and it also taught him the habit of obedience: on the staff, an officer’s duty was to carry out the orders of his commander, not to question them, and Jodl, who had never been inclined to question authority, took that lesson to heart.

4. Rise to Prominence

The Reichswehr and the War Ministry

After the war, Jodl was one of the officers retained in the Reichswehr, and he rose steadily through the ranks, serving in the War Ministry in Berlin and as a staff officer in various commands. He was promoted to major in 1923, to lieutenant colonel in 1929, and to colonel in 1933, and in 1935 he was appointed chief of the National Defence Department in the War Ministry, a post that gave him responsibility for the planning of German rearmament and for the preparation of the armed forces for war. In that post he worked closely with General Werner von Blomberg, the Minister of War, and with General Wilhelm Keitel, the head of the Armed Forces Office, and he became known as a man who could be relied upon to carry out the rearmament programme efficiently and without raising awkward questions. He was not a political officer, and he did not join the Nazi Party, but he was sympathetic to the regime’s promise to restore the army’s standing, and he was willing to serve it. In 1938, after the Blomberg-Fritsch crisis, he was appointed chief of the Operations Department of the OKW, and in August 1939, on the eve of the invasion of Poland, he was appointed Chief of the Operations Staff of the OKW, a post he held until the end of the war.

Chief of the Operations Staff

Jodl’s appointment as Chief of the Operations Staff in August 1939 was the decisive moment of his career, and it placed him at the centre of the German war effort. In that post, he was responsible for the planning of all German military operations, for the drafting of the directives that Hitler issued to the armed forces, and for the coordination of the three services. He was present at almost every major military conference, and he was, in the words of one historian, “the man who translated Hitler’s ideas into military orders”, a description that captures both his importance and his responsibility. He was a brilliant staff officer, who could draft a directive in a night, who understood the operational problems of a campaign, and who could present a complex plan in a clear and concise form. He was also a man who never questioned Hitler’s decisions, who never resigned, and who never, in the six years of the war, refused an order, a record that made him, in Hitler’s eyes, the ideal chief of staff, and that made him, in the eyes of the Tribunal at Nuremberg, a war criminal.

5. Alfred Jodl’s Role in World War II

The Early Campaigns: Poland to France

As Chief of the Operations Staff, Jodl was responsible for the planning of the invasions of Poland in September 1939, of Denmark and Norway in April 1940, and of France and the Low Countries in May 1940. He drafted the directives for those campaigns, he coordinated the movements of the army, navy and air force, and he was present at the conferences at which Hitler decided on the timing and the objectives of the operations. He was not a field commander, and he did not direct the battles, but he was the officer who turned Hitler’s strategic ideas into operational orders, and he was, in that sense, the architect of the early German victories. He was also present at the conferences at which Hitler decided on the invasion of the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa, and he drafted the directive for that invasion, Directive No. 21, issued on 18 December 1940, which set out the objectives of the campaign and the forces to be employed. The directive, which Jodl drafted, was the foundation of the largest military operation in history, and it was also the foundation of the war of annihilation that followed it.

Directive No. 21: Barbarossa

Directive No. 21, issued on 18 December 1940 and drafted by Jodl, is the most important document of his career, and it deserves to be described in detail. The directive ordered the German armed forces to “crush Soviet Russia in a quick campaign”, and it set out the objectives of the invasion: the destruction of the Red Army, the occupation of the Baltic states, Belorussia and the Ukraine, and the advance to a line from Archangel to Astrakhan. The directive was a military document, but it was also a political one: it assumed that the Soviet Union would collapse in a few weeks, and it made no provision for a long war, an assumption that proved to be false and that led to the German defeat before Moscow in December 1941. Jodl, who drafted the directive, later claimed that he had warned Hitler that the campaign would be difficult, but there is no contemporary evidence that he did so, and the Tribunal at Nuremberg found that he had helped to plan a war of aggression, and that he was therefore guilty of crimes against peace.

The War in the East and the Criminal Orders

The war against the Soviet Union brought Jodl into direct contact with the criminal character of the German war. As Chief of the Operations Staff, he was responsible for the drafting of the orders that governed the conduct of the war in the East, including the Commissar Order of June 1941, which directed the execution of captured Soviet political commissars, and the Commando Order of October 1942, which directed the execution of captured Allied commandos, an order that Jodl himself signed and that he defended at Nuremberg as a military necessity. He also drafted the orders that governed the treatment of Soviet prisoners of war, and the orders that authorised the use of forced labour, and he was present at the conferences at which Hitler decided on the policy of starvation and of murder in the occupied territories. In each case, his defence at Nuremberg was the same: he had drafted the orders, but he had not made the policy, and he had tried, in private, to mitigate them. In each case, the Tribunal found that he had done more than draft them: he had helped to formulate the policy, he had pressed for its execution, and he had, by his signature, given the authority of the High Command to crimes that were, in the words of the Tribunal, “a deliberate and systematic violation of the laws of war”.

The Last Years and the Surrender

In the last years of the war, Jodl’s role became increasingly marginal, as Hitler relied less and less on the OKW and more and more on his own judgement. Jodl was present at the conference on 20 July 1944, when Claus von Stauffenberg’s bomb exploded, and he was slightly wounded; he was also present at the subsequent purge, in which he signed the orders that dismissed and arrested the officers suspected of involvement in the plot. In the last weeks of the war, he was with Hitler in Berlin, and after Hitler’s suicide on 30 April 1945, he was sent by Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz, Hitler’s successor, to Reims, to negotiate the surrender of the German armed forces with the Allies. On 7 May 1945, at 02:41, Jodl signed the instrument of unconditional surrender at the headquarters of General Dwight D. Eisenhower at Reims, in the presence of the Allied commanders, and the surrender came into effect at 23:01 on 8 May 1945. Jodl was then arrested by the British, and he spent the last year of his life in prison at Nuremberg, awaiting trial.

6. Key Decisions

Decisions in Office

Accepting the post of Chief of the Operations Staff (August 1939). Jodl’s decision to accept the post, knowing that he would be responsible for planning the invasions of Poland, France and the Soviet Union, was the decisive choice of his career. It gave him the opportunity to shape the German war effort, and it made him responsible for the campaigns he planned, a responsibility he did not understand until he stood in the dock at Nuremberg.

Drafting Directive No. 21 (December 1940). His drafting of the directive for the invasion of the Soviet Union was the single most important act of his career. The directive, which ordered the German armed forces to crush the Soviet Union in a quick campaign, was based on the assumption that the Soviet Union would collapse in a few weeks, an assumption that proved to be false and that led to the German defeat before Moscow.

Signing the Commando Order (October 1942). His signature on the Commando Order, which directed the execution of captured Allied commandos, was the single most criminal act of his career. He later defended the order as a military necessity, arguing that commandos were not entitled to the protection of the laws of war, but the Tribunal found that the order was a violation of the laws of war, and that Jodl was guilty of war crimes for signing it.

Decisions at Nuremberg

Pleading obedience (1945–1946). At Nuremberg, Jodl’s defence was that he had obeyed orders, and that a soldier had no right to disobey the orders of his superior. The Tribunal rejected that defence, holding that the orders he had drafted and signed were manifestly criminal, and that a senior officer who knowingly participates in crimes cannot plead obedience. The decision established the principle, which has since become a cornerstone of international law, that obedience to orders is not a defence to a charge of war crimes.

Signing the surrender at Reims (7 May 1945). Jodl’s decision to sign the instrument of unconditional surrender at Reims was a decision to end the war, and it was a decision that he made on the orders of Dönitz, Hitler’s successor. The surrender, which came into effect on 8 May 1945, ended the war in Europe, and Jodl’s signature on it is the last act of his military career.

7. Controversies

The Staff Officer and Responsibility

The central controversy about Jodl is the question of the responsibility of the staff officer, and it is a controversy that goes beyond Jodl himself to the whole of the German General Staff. Jodl’s defence — that he was a staff officer, that he drafted orders but did not make policy, and that he had no power to oppose Hitler — was the defence of many German staff officers after the war, and it was rejected at Nuremberg on the grounds that Jodl had not only drafted criminal orders but had helped to formulate the policy behind them, and that a staff officer who knowingly participates in the planning of a war of aggression cannot plead obedience. The Tribunal’s judgement, which has since become a cornerstone of international law, was that the staff officer is as responsible as the commander, and that the fact that a person acted pursuant to the order of his government or of a superior does not free him from responsibility under international law, provided that a moral choice was in fact possible to him. Jodl’s case was, in that sense, a test case: if a staff officer, who did not command troops in battle, could be held responsible for the crimes he helped to plan, then no soldier could plead that he was merely following orders. His critics argue that the judgement was just, and that Jodl, who had helped to plan the war of aggression and the murder of prisoners, deserved his fate; his defenders argue that the judgement was harsh, and that Jodl, who had no power to oppose Hitler and who had tried, in private, to mitigate the orders, was a scapegoat for the crimes of the regime. The debate continues, but the principle established at Nuremberg — that the staff officer is responsible for the orders he drafts — has not been seriously challenged since.

The Commando Order

A second controversy concerns the Commando Order of 18 October 1942, which Jodl signed and which directed that captured Allied commandos should be executed, even if they had surrendered. Jodl later defended the order as a military necessity, arguing that commandos, who operated behind the lines in civilian clothes, were not entitled to the protection of the laws of war, and that the order was a deterrent against commando raids. The Tribunal rejected that defence, holding that the order was a violation of the laws of war, and that Jodl, who had signed it, was guilty of war crimes. The controversy over the Commando Order is therefore also a controversy over the laws of war, and over the question of whether a soldier who fights behind the lines is entitled to the protection of those laws, a question that has been debated ever since and that remains relevant in modern warfare.

The Rehabilitation of 1953

A third controversy concerns Jodl’s posthumous rehabilitation. In 1953, a German denazification court in Munich posthumously rehabilitated Jodl, finding that he was not guilty of crimes against humanity, a decision that was based on the testimony of his widow, Luise Jodl, and on the argument that Jodl had not known about the Holocaust. The decision was controversial, and it was later reversed: in 1953, the American High Commissioner in Germany, James B. Conant, intervened, and the rehabilitation was annulled, on the grounds that the court had no jurisdiction to overturn the judgement of the International Military Tribunal. The controversy over the rehabilitation is therefore also a controversy over the authority of the Nuremberg Tribunal, and over the question of whether a German court can overturn its judgement. The rehabilitation has been cited by apologists for Jodl as evidence of his innocence, and it has been cited by his critics as evidence of the willingness of the German courts, in the 1950s, to rehabilitate war criminals. The controversy continues, but the judgement of the International Military Tribunal, which convicted Jodl on all four counts of the indictment, remains the authoritative judgement on his career.

8. Later Life and Death

Arrest and Imprisonment

Jodl’s later life was short, and it was spent in prison. After signing the surrender at Reims on 7 May 1945, he was arrested by the British and held in custody, first at Flensburg and then at Nuremberg, where he was indicted by the International Military Tribunal on charges of conspiracy, crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity. He spent more than a year in the prison at Nuremberg, preparing his defence with his lawyer, and writing his memoirs, which were published after his death. The conditions of his imprisonment were strict, but he was allowed to receive visitors, including his second wife, Luise, whom he had married in 1945, after the death of his first wife, Irma, in 1944. He wrote letters to his family in which he expressed his belief that he had done his duty as a soldier and that history would judge him more kindly than his contemporaries, and he also wrote, in his memoirs, that he had known that the war was lost by 1943, and that he had continued to serve because he believed that a soldier’s duty was to obey, even when obedience led to disaster.

Trial, Sentence and Execution

Jodl was tried at Nuremberg from November 1945 to October 1946, and the trial was the most important event of his later life. The prosecution presented evidence that he had drafted Directive No. 21, that he had signed the Commando Order, and that he had helped to plan the war of aggression and the murder of prisoners and civilians. Jodl admitted that he had drafted the directives and signed the orders, but he argued that he had done so as a soldier who obeyed orders, and that he had tried, in private, to mitigate them. The Tribunal rejected that defence, and on 1 October 1946 it convicted him on all four counts of the indictment, and sentenced him to death by hanging. He was executed on 16 October 1946, in the gymnasium of the Nuremberg prison, together with nine other condemned men, and his body was cremated and his ashes scattered in the Isar River, so that his grave could not become a place of pilgrimage. His last words, according to the accounts of those present, were an appeal to God and to the German people. He was fifty-six years old, and he was, with Keitel, one of the two senior officers of the OKW to be executed at Nuremberg.

9. Legacy of Alfred Jodl

The Nuremberg Principle and the Staff Officer

Jodl’s lasting legacy is the principle established at his trial: that the staff officer is as responsible as the commander, and that obedience to orders is not a defence to a charge of war crimes. The Nuremberg Principles, adopted by the United Nations in 1950, state that the fact that a person acted pursuant to the order of his government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided that a moral choice was in fact possible to him, and that principle has since been applied in the trials of war criminals in Yugoslavia, Rwanda and elsewhere. Jodl’s case is cited in every textbook of international law as the leading example of the principle as applied to the staff officer, and his name is associated, not with military glory, but with the limits of obedience. In that sense, his legacy is a negative one: he is remembered, not for what he achieved, but for what his trial established, and for the warning that his career provides to staff officers who are asked to draft criminal orders.

A Warning to Staff Officers

Jodl’s career is also a warning to staff officers about the dangers of unthinking obedience. He was, by all accounts, a brilliant staff officer, a man who could draft a directive in a night, who understood the operational problems of a campaign, and who could present a complex plan in a clear and concise form. Those virtues, which are the virtues of a good staff officer in peacetime, became, in the service of a criminal regime, the instruments of crime, and Jodl’s fate shows that brilliance and diligence, without judgement and without conscience, are not virtues at all, but vices. Military schools around the world now teach Jodl’s case as an example of what can happen when a staff officer surrenders his judgement to his superior, and when the habit of obedience is allowed to replace the duty to think. His legacy is therefore a cautionary tale, and it is a tale that remains relevant whenever staff officers are asked to draft orders that they know, or should know, to be criminal.

10. Assessment by Historians

The Military Assessment

Military historians assess Jodl as a brilliant staff officer and a poor commander, and the assessment rests on the distinction between the two roles. As a staff officer, he was diligent, organised and reliable, and he was trusted by Hitler to draft the directives that governed the German war effort. As a commander, he was never tested in the field, and he never showed the independence of judgement that a commander needs. His appointment as Chief of the Operations Staff was, in that sense, a mistake: Hitler wanted a chief of staff who would not oppose him, and Jodl was the ideal candidate, but the price of that appointment was that the German armed forces had, at their head, a man who could not think for himself, and who could not, when it mattered, tell Hitler that he was wrong. Historians argue that the German war effort suffered from Jodl’s appointment, because it removed the last check on Hitler’s interference in military affairs, and because it meant that the OKW, which should have been a professional military staff, became instead a bureaucratic instrument of Hitler’s will.

The Moral Assessment

The moral assessment of Jodl is unequivocal, and it has not changed since the judgement at Nuremberg. He was a senior officer who drafted criminal orders, who signed them, and who continued to serve a criminal regime long after he knew that the war was lost and that the regime was murdering millions of people. His defenders argue that he was a weak man, not a wicked one, and that his crime was cowardice rather than cruelty; his critics reply that cowardice, in a man of his rank, is itself a crime, and that the distinction between weakness and wickedness is of no comfort to the victims of the orders he drafted. The consensus among historians is that Jodl was guilty as charged, and that his execution was just. He is remembered, not as a great soldier, but as a warning: a man whose professional virtues became, in the absence of moral courage, the instruments of crime, and whose fate shows that the plea of obedience is no defence when the orders are manifestly criminal.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was Alfred Jodl?
Alfred Jodl (1890–1946) was a German general and Chief of the Operations Staff of the OKW from 1939 to 1945. He was Hitler’s principal operations officer, and he was tried and executed at Nuremberg for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

What was Jodl’s role in the OKW?
As Chief of the Operations Staff, Jodl was responsible for planning all German military operations, drafting the directives that Hitler issued to the armed forces, and coordinating the three services. He drafted Directive No. 21 for the invasion of the Soviet Union, and he signed the Commando Order of October 1942.

What was the Commando Order?
The Commando Order of 18 October 1942 directed that captured Allied commandos should be executed, even if they had surrendered. Jodl signed the order and defended it at Nuremberg as a military necessity, but the Tribunal found that it was a violation of the laws of war.

Did Jodl sign the German surrender?
Yes. On 7 May 1945, at 02:41, Jodl signed the instrument of unconditional surrender of the German armed forces at the headquarters of General Dwight D. Eisenhower at Reims. The surrender came into effect at 23:01 on 8 May 1945.

Was Jodl rehabilitated after the war?
In 1953 a German denazification court in Munich posthumously rehabilitated Jodl, but the rehabilitation was annulled later in the same year, on the intervention of the American High Commissioner, James B. Conant, on the grounds that the court had no jurisdiction to overturn the judgement of the International Military Tribunal.

How was Jodl executed?
He was sentenced to death by hanging on 1 October 1946, and he was executed on 16 October 1946 in the gymnasium of the Nuremberg prison. His body was cremated and his ashes were scattered in the Isar River.

Sources

1. Wikipedia, “Alfred Jodl” — consolidated biography: birth 10 May 1890, death 16 October 1946, Chief of the Operations Staff of the OKW 1939–1945, Commando Order, surrender at Reims 7 May 1945, Nuremberg trial.
2. International Military Tribunal, Trial of the Major War Criminals Before the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg (1947–1949) — the indictment, the evidence on Directive No. 21 and the Commando Order, and the judgement on Jodl.
3. Telford Taylor, The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials (1992) — the trial of Jodl, the defence of superior orders, and the judgement.
4. Ian Kershaw, Hitler 1936–1945: Nemesis (2000) — Hitler’s command of the armed forces, the OKW, and Jodl’s role as Chief of the Operations Staff.
5. Geoffrey P. Megargee, Inside Hitler’s High Command (2000) — the structure of the OKW and the OKH, and the failure of the German high command.
6. Walter Görlitz, History of the German General Staff 1657–1945 (1953) — the German General Staff, the OKW, and Jodl’s place within it.