“It is quite true Gen. Jodl transmitted a number of military orders from AH to Wehrmacht officers down the chain of command. Jodl’s signature on a some these orders s what lead to his death sentence. But the orders didn’t come from him. They came from you know who. Often Jodl and sometimes even FM Keitel tried to water down some of AH’s crazier orders behind the scenes. I did not say Jodl was innocent. . He remained loyal to the end and wound up on the scaffold. I think he should have received a sentence similar to the other military leaders on the docket such as Raeder and Doenitz IMHO.”
My question asking how many people had to die pursuant to unlawful orders signed by Jodl without his resigning his commission in protest before you will judge Jodl guilty of a capital crime justifying his hanging?
Jodl was right there in the middle of enthusiastically and unlawfully invading numerous nations alongside the other NZI leaders. For example, Jodl was an accomplice in cheerfully planning the invasion and conquest of Denmark and Norway. Note where the Nuremberg IMT reported:
By teletype of 28th October, 1944 Jodl ordered the evacuation 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 it and it was not fully carried out.
A friend of ours located here in the United States absolutely detests Germans. Her grandfather and grandmother lived on a rural farm in the area subject to Jodl’s order. German soldiers acted sadistically when they abused her grandparents and then dragged them out of their log cabin into the snow and viciously murdered them pursuant to those orders from Jodl.
So, as far as I’m concerned it makes no difference whether Jodl is responsible as a conspirator to unlawfully kill one person or one million people. He earned the death penalty either way and many times over as Jodl stood by as Hitler’s executioners hanged Stauffenberg by piano wire before a movie camera until he was all but dead and then repeatedly revived him to be executed by piano wire again several times until he could no longer be revived.
Stauffenberg was shot btw. On the evening of the July 20th Bomb Plot.
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.
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.
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.