He signed a number of criminal orders and directives that led to numerous war crimes. Keitel's rise to the Wehrmacht high command began with his appointment as the head of the Armed Forces Office at the Reich Ministry of War in He was reviled among his military colleagues as Hitler's habitual " yes-man ". After the war, Keitel was indicted by the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg as one of the "major war criminals". He was found guilty on all counts of the indictment: crimes against humanity , crimes against peace , criminal conspiracy , and war crimes.
He was sentenced to death and executed by hanging in He was the eldest son of Carl Keitel — , a middle-class landowner, and his wife Apollonia Vissering — At the beginning he wanted to take over his family's estates after completing his education at a gymnasium. This plan failed as his father did not want to retire. Instead, he embarked on a military career in , becoming an officer cadet of the Prussian Army.
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Keitel was 1. Three years later, he returned to field command. Now a lieutenant-colonel, Keitel was again assigned to the war ministry in and was soon promoted to Head of the Organizational Department "T-2" , a post he held until Adolf Hitler took power in Playing a vital role in the German rearmament , he traveled at least once to the Soviet Union to inspect secret Reichswehr training camps.
In the autumn of , he suffered a heart attack and double pneumonia. In , at the recommendation of General Werner von Fritsch , Keitel was promoted to the rank of major general and appointed chief of the Reich Ministry of War's Armed Forces Office Wehrmachtsamt , which oversaw the army, navy, and air force.
On 21 January , Keitel received evidence revealing that the wife of his superior, War Minister Werner von Blomberg , was a former prostitute. Hitler took command of the Wehrmacht in and replaced the war ministry with the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces Oberkommando der Wehrmacht , with Keitel as its chief.
