Jodl, General Alfred

Jodl, General Alfred (1890–1946),German Army officer who served as chief of the Operations staff of the German High Command (OKW) throughout the war and was, therefore, one of Hitler's closest military advisers.

Born in Würzburg, Bavaria, Jodl fought as an artillery officer during the First World War. In 1932, as a major, he was appointed to the operations branch of the Truppenamt, the clandestine replacement for the German General Staff which had been forbidden by the Versailles settlement. He then became leader of the National Defence Branch of the Armed Forces Office, and in October 1938 was given command of an artillery unit in Vienna, before returning to Berlin in August 1939 to become chief of OKW's Operations staff under his father-in-law, Keitel.

A prudent, impassive, and cautious man who preferred persuasion to confrontation when dealing with Hitler, Jodl was promoted straight to lt-general from brigadier in July 1940 and in January 1944 was promoted general. He remained a loyal, but far from servile, supporter of Hitler to the end, and though, as the war progressed, his judgement sometimes faltered, he retained the Führer's confidence. On 7 May 1945 he signed at Reims the unconditional surrender of all German forces on behalf of the German government and was found guilty of war crimes at the Nuremberg trials and hanged. A German de-Nazification court exonerated him in 1953.