Wilhelm Keitel

The Battle of France, 1940, where it's Hitler looking over a map.

Well, I think Yodel or Keitel is pointing something out to him.

And the rest of OKW is kind of similarly hunched over.

You know, and you realize Hitler appears very much in his elements as warlord.

He was proper mad, right? He was proper angry, by the way, and practically foaming at the mouth demanded that each and every escapee be executed.

Now, he was so, like, in a fervour that Hermann Goring, he was in such a fervour that Hermann Goring, Wilhelm Keitel and Hans von Kleivenitz had to talk him down.

Now, they talked him down a bit because he was, like, well embarrassed and enraged, but they were like, hey...

If you massacre a whole bunch of Allied pilots, this might result in a retaliation against our own men that are held in Allied POW camps.

Following the eventual capture of Stalingrad, Hitler was reportedly considering having Paulus replace Jodl outright.

At the same time, Keitel himself might be replaced by Kesselring.

Hitler was even weighing whether to dismiss the OKW's deputy chief of operations staff as well.

Rumors swirled throughout the high command regarding who would retain their existing posts, who might be promoted, and who would simply be discarded entirely.

You know, like, uh, like, yelling and, like, slamming his fist on the desk and, like, visibly, like, agitated and angry, because despite what Hollywood suggests, like, Hitler wasn't, that wasn't his nature.

Um, but that, um, he, uh, summoned, uh, Keitel and Yodel immediately um, he apparently, uh, called himself down, and he said that, you know, owing a course, not just to his Austrian upbringing, but his experience in the Great War, you know, he said that, you know, chauvinistic Serbs, you know, they've always been, um, they've always been responsible for, you know, catastrophes at scale, you know, and, uh, they're doing this again.

And this will not stand.

He sent, he ordered fuel to send immediately for von Brausch, who at that time was still the army chief of staff.

Whether you're talking about the OKW, whether you're talking...

Like, this is a rare example of a quorum.

You had Hitler, you had Huell, you had von Brausch, you had Ribbentrop, you had Yodel, you had Keitel.

Basically, everybody who later on, you know, basically by December 41, there was like a total fracturing here of worldview, as well as ideas on strategy, both immediate and grand.

As the war progresses and the situation worsens for Germany, he's going to get rid of people who he doesn't like, who contradict him and his orders, and he's going to instead rely on the people who make him feel good, basically, on his closest yes-men.

And the two military figures that are these most important yes-men are Keitel and Jodl.

And Yodel has a place in the moor slayer, doesn't he? He has his

own bunker here as well, which I think we should explore next.

Despite Hitler's anxieties with his generals' plans, he reluctantly agreed to the advance towards the Soviet city of Kursk.

Well, Jonny, speaking of yes-men, the person stationed here, he was the worst of the lot, wasn't he?

Right up there, this was Keitel's bunker.

The other generals, they had a nickname for him based on the word lackey, which is similar in German.

Okay.

That's, uh, and it's, um, in those days, especially, especially then, you know, things like masculine honor really, really mattered, you know? So what Hitler then said to Keitel, um, who was another, uh, general officer who, who came to, uh, a very high, preeminence on the German general staff later.

He was entitled to implement a gradual mobilization of the German army and prepare for Case Green.

And Case Green was the code for war against Czechoslovakia.

This is Hitler's foreign minister is there.

We have Keitel, one of the most senior commanders of the German armed forces is there.

Stryker, a very violent anti-Semitic publisher of Dear Sturmer is there.

Hans Frank.

Goering declares himself not guilty.

And the same answer starts coming along the dock.

So Hess not guilty, Keitel not guilty, Ribbentrop not guilty.

They're all one after the other, formally denying criminal guilt.