The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Wilhelm Keitel: Chief of the German High Command, 1938-1945 [Paperback]

Walter Gorlitz (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 12, 2000

These extraordinary memoirs—written by German Field-Marshal Wilhelm keitel (1882-1946) in the six weeks before he was hung in Nuremberg for war crimes—offers readers an unparalleled insider's view of the blitzkrieg against Poland, the conquest of France, and the brutal campaign against the Soviet Union. Most startling is his account of the final eighteen days of the Thrid Reich, which he personally directed.

Editorial Reviews

Review

A legacy to history. (Kirkus Reviews )

Important and revealing...a frightening picture of the German militarist....Keitel appears as tragic figure living in an unbelievable doctrinaire world of fantastic automatons all lacking one vital asset—a sense of morality. (Cornelius Ryan And The New York Times Book Review )

A shocking illustration of how honor and loyalty can be misused....The real value of the book lies in its unvarnished---though often involuntary—portrayal of the moral confusion that spread through Hitler's Germany. (Ernest S. Pisko Christian Science Monitor )

This is an unparalleled insider's account of Nazi Germany, including Hitler and its other leaders, its uncoordinated and often inefficient ministries, service branches, and industrial complex, and its diabolical philosophies and sometimes disastrous strategies. (Ww11 History )

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: German

Product Details

• Paperback: 296 pages
• Publisher: Cooper Square Press; 1st Cooper Square Press ed edition (September 12, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0815410727
• ISBN-13: 978-0815410720
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #883,269 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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59 of 67 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Isn't it ironic..., June 25, 2001

By 

"derro" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Wilhelm Keitel: Chief of the German High Command, 1938-1945 (Paperback)

Granted, Field Marshal Keitel was a rather pathetic and hollow man, but even a man such as he did not deserve to see is memoirs so badly taken care of by a bad publishing company and a clueless editor. Let's start from the beginning, my first problem is with the binding of the book : it's cheap very cheap... Next, there's not a single personal picture (I'm amazed the publisher didn't bother to print some considering how there is such a huge number of pictures of the man and of the period...). The price is also much to high if you compare it with other memoirs of the period, also the book quality and it's size doesn't justify such a high fee.

On to the editing job it's the worst, any serious scholar or historian will tell you that the most interesting thing about memoirs is the fact that they are direct sources of information on a given period, as long as they remain integral. Sadly, the editor didn't see it that way and every time Keitel tried to talk about something other than army administration to express himself about more personal subjects it was edited out of the book! Also all the beginning of the memoirs from year 1934 to 37 were cut from this edition... It's not like the book would have been to big or anything! (It's actually rather small...) The only positive thing is the addition of some personnal letters which weren't present in the german original version.

On to the content of the memoirs. The botched editing gives for a rather ironic result. Imagine a man like Keitel, a fair administrator a very obedient soldier but a rather weak and empty fellow whom Hitler pushed around and forbade to express any personnal feelings all is life. Now that he finally decided to speak and try to express is own feelings, thoughts and emotion on something which ultimately resulted in the death of millions, including is own at the hand of Nuremberg's hangman; it is the editor who decided to cut him off...

In case you didn't get the point yet, stick to the german version, it's much more rewarding for any serious reader unless you're only interested in hearing Keitel ramble on an on about the different aspects of the OKW organisation and being edited out every time he goes out of line (that should be enough to put anybody to sleep...)

36 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinary Memoir, Valuable Historic Accounts, May 16, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Wilhelm Keitel: Chief of the German High Command, 1938-1945 (Paperback)

I believe few people would not read this book without more or less a kind of admiration for the author for his unique strong nerve, because without strong belief and strong nerve system, knowing any moment death would be at his door, he would not have put not only his personal history but also a whole nation's history into the account in such an accurate and crystal way within such short period-only six weeks.
The power of this extraordinary book lies in that the author as an exclusive high rank of a Field Marshal of German armed forces, the Chief of Staff to the High Command of Armed Forces, who working inside the German headquarters, who having participated all the enginering of military plans, has provided rare and valuable historical materials and revealed the truth of the inside the Third Reich, contributing to the establishing the truth of history from the other side, although they are certainly not welcome by the current official establishment account of the history. I wish people read this book with a wide open mind.

According to the Marshal, the invasion of Poland was to retake the territory that originally belonged to Germany; while the invation of the Soviet Union belonged to a preventive war (which has been confirmed by Soviet historians after more than forty years later). From the point of view of the Marshal, before invasion of Poland, Germany had tried hard to resolve the problem by negotiation, and they provided pretty fair offer to both Poland and France: Germany Government even publicly disavowed his interest in Alsce-Lorraine which, I believe few people know that before Louis XVI was part of Prussia. The Marshal has revealed some truth of the history which I believe have never been known to the public for some political reason. For instance, the Marshal has given justification about the famous commissar order and commando order in the east front, he pointed out that because the Soviet arbitrary refusal either to recognize the Hague Rules on Land Warfare or to consider themselves bound by the Geneva conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war, and due to the illegal partisan warfare occurred in the east front which was openly encouraged by Britain and the Soviet Union, so that the war with Soviets was a war fighting for survival, and Hitler demanded that German should dispense with all their outdated and traditional ideas about chivalry and the generally accepted rules of warfare, and smash terror with counter-terror. Another fact the Marshal revealed is the chivalry act German shown in their offering Greek honorable settlement in recognition of their brave struggle and of their blamelessness for the war: Hitler ordered the release and repatriation of all their prisoners of war immediately they had been disarmed; the poor countryside was to be preserved and the country's production was not to be touched except where it might be used to aid the British. And Hitler wanted the troops' victorious entry into Athens without a special parade in order to avoid injuring Greek national pride. The Marshal has cleared the true nature of the Conference that had took place in 1937 which Allied exaggerated its importance at the Nuremberg Trail, the Marshal argued that on the contrary to what Allied asserted, there was no Otto contingency plan, no Green or Red contingencies, but only the most tenuous defense of German frontiers to the east and to the west and preparations of the evacuation of the endangered frontier area to the west of the Rhine and the east of the Oder. Based on the Marshal, unlike what the Nuremberg imposed on German, the fact was that Germany had no any plan to wage a war against the Allied when Germany invaded Poland, because Hitler was strongly confident that the Allied would not intervene the matter which was a pure German domestic affair; the Marshal pointed out that at the time when the war broke out not only German Navy was in an infancy stage compared with the British mighty Royal Navy, but also German Army and German Air Force were in a weak shape: There were only 23 army division, while opposing them were 110 British and French divisions! The Marshall revealed the true reason of why German army halted before Dunkirk : Unlike all the accounts prevails in the current history, Keitel states it was not Hitler who should be responsibility for it but the generals who did not have guts to accept responsibility for it themselves if the operation failed due to the disadvantageous terrain which was with an extensive low-lying plain, intersected by thousands of waterways and all well below sea-level where the Kleist's Tank Army standing near by.

I should say that after reading the whole book nobody who has a slight sense of military virtue would deny that the Field-Marshal should not be regarded as war criminal but a loyal and patriot soldier for his country; that nobody who has heart would be indifferent to the dignity and noble act the Marshal shown in the Trial by fighting not for his own skin but for Germany, by shouldering the whole responsibility to shield German armed forces, would be unmoved by the touching letters the Marshal wrote to his defense counsel and the Allied Control Council for Germany to request a soldier's death, to face firing squad, instead of being hanged; that anyone who has a little knowledge of the international law, especially of one of the western world's fundamental legal doctrines: Nulla Poena Sine Lege-No punishment without a penal law in force at the time of the commission of the act, would come to the conclusion that the Field-Marshal should be acquitted and the trial for him is unjust.

I'd like to draw readers much attention to the last chapter written by Walter Goblets who like many politicians, high rank of military personalities, diplomats all around the world bravely and sharply criticize the Nuremberg Trial as a travesty on justice based on international law, shedding new lights on history, and arousing people to deeply contemplate. On this subject, I also recommend the book Nuremberg: A Nation on Trial and the book Doenitz at Nuremberg: A Re-Appraisal.

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A man badly judged by history, July 8, 2003

By 

Jonathan P Wong (Singapore) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Memoirs of Field-Marshal Wilhelm Keitel: Chief of the German High Command, 1938-1945 (Paperback)

Granted, Keitel was not the most gifted German Field Marshal in the German Army, yet he held his job until the very end. There are several reasons for this; the first being of course his blind obedience to Hitler. However, Keitel was not the only German officer to fall completely under Hitler spell. Secondly, whatever his faults, he was a capable administrator who managed for Hitler the vast amounts of paperwork, the OKM was bound to receive from all three branches of the military, in addition to other branches of the Third Reich.

His was a thankless job which in the end reduced a man who had once been a respected officer in the Army to a defeated man who was left to answer for his master crimes. Keitel, in his defence makes one excellent point, he argues that if so many within the Armed Forces hated him or believed that he should be replaced, why didn't anyone force him to go? These officers did nothing, because no one else wanted his thankless job, because they all saw what it did to Keitel. At Nuremburg, Keitel was sentenced to death by hanging; a fate which Keitel knew awaited him as soon as he was informed of the trial. The fate that Keitel did not attempt suicide to escape the trial shows us that in the end, Keitel was an honorable man whose only crime was to let himself fall totally under the spell of a Hitler.

The book itself only rates 3 stars because as someone has mentioned in a previous review, the editors of this book have taken it upon themselves to decide what to keep and what to edit out. A total lack of any photographs adds to the less than perfect rating. All in all however, this was an interesting book which allowed us a glimpse into the mind of Field Marshal Keitel.