“I thought Gen. Jodl’s execution at Nuremberg was a bit over the top. I think a sentence similar to what Doenitz and Raeder received would have been more appropriate.”
Wikipedia:
Jodl was accused of conspiracy to commit crimes against peace; planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression; war crimes; and crimes against humanity. The principal charges against him related to his signature of the Commando Order and the Commissar Order, both of which ordered that certain prisoners were to be summarily executed. Additional charges at his trial included unlawful deportation and abetting execution. Presented as evidence was his signature on an order that transferred Danish citizens, including Jews and other civilians, to concentration camps. Although he denied his role in the crime, the (disunited) court sustained his complicity based on the given evidence. The French judge, Henri Donnedieu de Vabres, did not agree in the case of Jodl.
And this also from Wikipedia:
“On 28 February 1953, the Munchen Hauptspruchkammer (main denazification court) declared Jodl not guilty of the main charges brought against him at Nuremberg. In doing so the court cited the French co-President of the Tribunal, Henri Donnedieu de Vebres, who had in 1949 called the verdict against Jodl a mistake. His property, which had been confiscated in 1946, was returned to his widow.”
The wishy-washy nature of some charges is laughable. Conspiracy to commit crimes against peace? Yeah, it's called war. Planning/initiating/waging wars of aggression? Again, it's this little thing called war. Sadly, humans always engaged in it and every country that has ever existed is guilty of it.
Crimes against humanity? What exactly does that entail (rhetorical question)? Specific persons should have been charged with specific, concrete crimes. Anyone involved in the Holocaust should have been charged with however many million counts of 1st, 2nd, or 3rd degree murder, or manslaughter, depending on the depth of their knowledge/involvement -- not some newly made-up and amorphous charge of "crimes against humanity."
Rather than just punish guilty parties as the victor punishing the loser, the desire on the part of the allies to lend international legal credence to the trials led to the legitimization of the idea pf international courts. Now the EU high-court is lording over Europe and the UN is ruling abortion to be a human right.
Now Jodl, specifically. If the allies wanted to deem certain organizations criminal, then the western allies should have officially recognized the criminal nature of the Soviet regime and thrown out the Commissar Order charge. To do less was a miscarriage of justice for political expediency.
If they really wanted Jodl dead, the Commando Order was the only legitimate way to do it. And as a military officer, and considering the nature of the charge, he should have been shot, not hanged.