Extract from Jodl's staff war diary, with a speech on the July 20 anti-Hitler plot, the betrayal by the officers involved, and the need for renewed unity and loyalty

Image View

Authors

Alfred Jodl (chief of wehrmacht operations staff)

See more details

Alfred Jodl

German general and convicted war criminal (1890-1946)

Alfred Jold
  • Born: 1890-05-10 (Würzburg)
  • Died: 1946-10-16 (Nuremberg)
  • Country of citizenship: German Reich; Kingdom of Bavaria; Weimar Republic
  • Occupation: military personnel; politician
  • Member of political party: Nazi Party
  • Participant in: International Military Tribunal (role: defendant)
  • Military rank: Generaloberst
  • Military branch: artillery

Date: 24 July 1944

Literal Title: Address of the Chief of the Operational Staff of the Armed Forces, General Jodl, to the Officers ad Officials of the Operational Staff of the Armed Forces at the Officers' Home of Restricted Zone II . . .

Defendant: Alfred Jodl

Total Pages: 2

Language of Text: English

Source of Text: Nazi conspiracy and aggression (Office of United States Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality. Washington, D.C. : U.S. Government Printing Office, 1946.)

Evidence Code: PS-1808

HLSL Item No.: 452132

Notes:Jodl describes himself as having "always thought along national, social and anti-Catholic lines."

Trial Issue

Biographical and character evidence (all cases)

Document Summary

Staff Evidence Analyses

PS-1808: File of Reports on the Attempted Assassination of Hitler, July 20, 1944

Address by the Chief of the.Armed Forces Operations Staff, Col. Gen. Jodi to the Officers and Officials of the Armed Forces Operations Staff. July 24, 1944:
19:30 hours, page 4.
Those making the attempt may have thought also that the men around Hitler were climbers and servile characters. But how did matters really stand? I, for example, was drawn in, even though I knew the movement before 1933 but little and could do nothing for it for the very reason that I was a soldier. Rather, I was against any relaxing of the discipline, bound as I was by my oath to the Reich President. Of course, my aims were, by and large, the aims of the movement, since my thinking was always nationalistic, social, and anti-Catholic, and since loyalty and obedience were the bases of life for me. And thus this train of thought is also disposed of.