German Surrender Ceremony VE Day Reims, France May 7 1945 [Video]

YouTube ^ | 1945-05-07 | Universal Newsreels

[WhiskeyX]

"Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces, Reims: Nazi General Jodl, representing Admiral Doenitz, strides into the 'war room' where Allied Generals await him and his party. After the surrender terms are understood, Jodl fills a third of a page with his scrawly signature, this his associates sign. U.S. General W. B. Smith the Allied Chief of Staff signs as do the remainder of the Allied Generals. In an adjoining room, General Eisenhower, wreathed in smiles, forms the signature pens into a V for Victory sign. Unconditional surrender is an accomplished fact." scenes of peace signed at red scholhouse in Reims, France, by Gen Jodl and Gen. Smith.

[Trapped Behind Enemy Lines]

One other point: You write:

“By teletype of the 28th October, 1944 Jodl ordered the EVACUATION (emphasis added) of all persons in northern Norway and burning of their houses so they could not help the Russians. Jodl says he was against this, but Hitler ordered and it was not fully carried out.”

Two points assuming this is all true.

1) I don’t view the above incident as a capital offense.

2) Assuming this all true, I actually see some mitigating factors in the above account which would have merited a less harsh sentence for Jodl.

[WhiskeyX]

“Stauffenberg was shot btw. On the evening of the July 20th Bomb Plot.”

The man who was executed by hanging and slow strangulation with piano wire on a meathook multiple times as Hitler’s executioners made movies was Berthold Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, and not his younger brother, Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg.

“I guess we will have to disagree. I don’t doubt that Jodl was a high ranking staff officer who participated in strategy meetings and transmitted orders. I don’t claim he was innocent. I do not think he was a ruthless war criminal like Himmler, Heydrich, or Eichmann.”

All of which goes back to the still unanswered question of just how many people have to die as a consequence of Jodl’s orders and/or his participation in the conspiracy to wage an unlawful war while committing war crimes under the Laws of War before he should be judged guilty of a capital offense? Is it 1 million deaths, 1,000 deaths, 100 deaths, 10 deaths, or perhaps only 1 death?

“Yes Jodl could have joined the July 20th Bomb Plot. He would have suffered the same fate as the rest. Either way he choices weren’t good. I still think a punishment similar to what Doenitz and Raeder received would have been more appropriate.”

General Friedrich Paulus had the moral courage to rescind the Reichenau Order or Severity Order and the Commissar Order in the Sixth Army at his own personal risk, but Jodl forfeited his life by making himself complicit with the war crimes committed by Keitel and Hitler. If Jodl was in a dilemma, it was a dilemma of his own making which he lacked the moral courage and/or was too cowardly to face until he was forcibly compelled to stand as a defendant accused of war crimes before a military tribunal.

[Trapped Behind Enemy Lines]

I think we could go around and around on this quite a bit. We both agree Jodl was not innocent. We disagree on the punishment. Jodl, unlike Keitel, actually stood up to AH on a few documented occasions. AH nearly fired him once was thinking about replacing him with Paulus. One could argue that Jodl did not stand up to AH enough. My view of him is largely that of staff officer, not a bloodthirsty war criminal. Which is why I think a lesser sentenced would have been preferable. I am not alone in this view. We already mentioned the French judge at the IMT and the denazification court which later found him posthumously not guilty of the major charges brought against him at Nuremburg.