Alfred Jodl Alfred Josef Ferdinand Jodl ( ; 10 May 1890 – 16 October 1946 ) was a German military commander , attaining the position of Chief of the Operations Staff of the Armed Forces High Command ( Oberkommando der Wehrmacht , or OKW ) during World War II , acting as deputy to Wilhelm Keitel , and signed the unconditional surrender of Germany as a representative for German president Karl Dönitz . At Nuremberg he was tried , sentenced to death and hanged as a war criminal , although he was later exonerated by a German court . Early life . Alfred Jodl was born out of wedlock as Alfred Josef Ferdinand Baumgärtler in Würzburg , Germany , the son of Officer Alfred Jodl and Therese Baumgärtler , assuming the surname Jodl upon his parents ' marriage in 1899 . He was educated at Cadet School in Munich , from which he graduated in 1910 . General Ferdinand Jodl was his younger brother . The philosopher and psychologist Friedrich Jodl at the University of Vienna was his uncle . After schooling , Jodl joined the army as an artillery officer . During World War I he served as a battery officer on the Western Front from 1914 – 1916 , twice being wounded . In 1917 Jodl served briefly on the Eastern Front before returning to the west as a staff officer . After the war Jodl remained in the armed forces and joined the Versailles - limited Reichswehr . Marriages . Jodl had married Irma Gräfin von Bullion , a woman five years his senior from an aristocratic Swabian family , in September 1913 . She died in Königsberg in the spring of 1944 from pneumonia , contracted after major spinal surgery . In November 1944 , Jodl married Luise von Benda , a family friend . World War II . Jodl ' s appointment as a major in the operations branch of the Truppenamt in the Army High Command in the last days of the Weimar Republic put him under command of General Ludwig Beck , who recognised Jodl as " a man with a future " . On September 1939 Jodl first met Adolf Hitler . In the build - up to World War II , Jodl was nominally assigned as a " Artilleriekommandeur " of the 44th Division from October 1938 to August 1939 during the Anschluss . Jodl was chosen by Hitler to be " Chef des Wehrmachtsführungsstabes " ( Chief of Operation Staff of the newly formed OKW ) . Jodl acted as a Chief of Staff during the swift occupation of Denmark and Norway . During the campaign , Hitler interfered only when the German destroyer flotilla was demolished outside Narvik and wanted the German forces there to retreat into Sweden . Jodl successfully thwarted Hitler ' s orders . Jodl disagreed with Hitler for the second time during the summer offensive of 1942 . Hitler dispatched Jodl to the Caucasus to visit Field - Marshal Wilhelm List to find out why the oil fields had not been captured . Jodl returned only to corroborate List ' s reports that the troops were at their last gasp . During the Battle of Britain Jodl was optimistic of Germany ' s success over Britain , on 30 June 1940 writing " The final German victory over England is now only a question of time . " Jodl signed the Commando Order of 28 October 1942 ( in which Allied commando s , including properly uniformed soldiers as well as combatant s wearing civilian clothes such as Maquis and Partisans were to be executed immediately without trial if captured behind German lines ) and the Commissar Order of 6 June 1941 ( in which Soviet Political Commissioners were to be shot ) . He was injured during the 20 July plot of 1944 against Hitler . Because of this , Jodl was awarded the special wounded badge alongside several other leading Nazi figures . He was also rather vocal about his suspicions that others had not endured wounds as severe as his own , often downplaying the effects of the plot on others . At the end of World War II in Europe , Jodl signed the instruments of unconditional surrender on 7 May 1945 in Reims as the representative of Karl Dönitz . Trial and execution . Jodl was arrested and transferred to Flensburg POW camp and later put before the International Military Tribunal at the Nuremberg Trials . Jodl was accused of conspiracy to commit crimes against peace ; planning , initiating and waging wars of aggression ; war crime s ; and crimes against humanity . The principal charges against him related to his signature of the Commando Order and the Commissar Order , both of which ordered that certain prisoners were to be summarily executed . Additional charges at his trial included unlawful deportation and abetting execution . Presented as evidence was his signature on an order that transferred Danish citizens , including Jews and other civilians , to concentration camp s . Although he denied his role in the crime , the ( disunited ) court sustained his complicity based on the given evidence . The French judge , Henri Donnedieu de Vabres didn ' t agree in the case of Jodl . His wife Luise attached herself to her husband ' s defense team . Subsequently interviewed by Gitta Sereny , researching her biography of Albert Speer , Luise alleged that in many instances the Allied prosecution made charges against Jodl based on documents that they refused to share with the defense . Jodl nevertheless proved that some of the charges made against him were untrue , such as the charge that he had helped Hitler gain control of Germany in 1933 . Jodl pleaded not guilty " before God , before history and my people " . Found guilty on all four charges , he was hanged ( with Keitel , on 16 October 1946 ) although he had asked the court , according to military traditions , to be executed by firing squad . Jodl ' s last words were reportedly " Ich grüße Dich , mein ewiges Deutschland " — " I greet you , my eternal Germany . " He was declared dead 18 minutes later . His remains were cremated at Munich , and his ashes raked out and scattered into the Isar River ( effectively an attempt to prevent the establishment of a permanent burial site to those nationalist groups who might seek to congregate there — an example of this being Benito Mussolini ' s grave in Predappio , Italy ) . A cenotaph in the family plot in the Fraueninsel Cemetery , in Chiemsee , Germany is dedicated to him . Post mortem rehabilitation . On 28 February 1953 , the " München Hauptspruchkammer " ( main denazification court ) declared Jodl " not guilty " of the main charges brought against him at Nuremberg , citing the French co - President of the Tribunal , Henri Donnedieu de Vabres , who had in 1949 called the verdict against Jodl a mistake . His property , which had been confiscated in 1946 , was returned to his widow . The declaration was " politically " revoked on 3 September 1953 by the Minister of Political Liberation for Bavaria , after pressure from American officers . This decision had no " juridical " impact , his wife could keep his property . Portrayal in the media . Alfred Jodl has been portrayed by the following actors in film and television productions .