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Typed manuscript in German, signed twice, "A. Jodl" (one, signed with a faulty pen, struck through), two pages, 8 x 11.75, August 31, 1946. Headed "Schlussausführungen [Concluding Remarks]," Jodl's final speech prepared for delivery to the International Military Tribunal as a summation of his defense; surviving courtroom film exists of Jodl reading this exact statement.
In full (translated): "It is my unshakeable belief that histories written in the future will come to an objective and correct evaluation of the senior military commanders and those who worked with them. For they, and the whole German armed forces, faced an impossible task, namely, to conduct a war which they did not want under a supreme commander whose confidence they did not possess, and in whom they themselves felt only a limited trust with methods which often contradicted their principles of generalship, and their traditional and tried experience with troops and police units which did not come fully under their authority, and with an intelligence service which was partly working for the enemy. And all this, in the clear realization that the war would decide the existence or annihilation of the beloved fatherland.
They were not serving the infernal powers nor a criminal, but their people and their fatherland. As far as I am concerned, I believe that no man can be better employed than when he strives for the highest of the goals which are attainable in his situation. That, and nothing else, has always bean the guideline of my conduct. And for that reason, I shall—whatever sentence you, as my judges, pass on me—leave this court with my head held as high as when I entered it, many months ago.
Whoever calls me a traitor to the honorable tradition of the German army, or asserts that I remained at my post for selfish personal reasons, I term a traitor to the truth. In a war like this one, in which hundreds of thousands of women and children were wiped out by blanket bombing, and among the partisans all yes, all—methods were used that seemed useful to them, stern measures, even when these could appear to be questionable under international law, are no crime before the tribunal of morality and conscience.
For I believe and declare that one's duty to fellow countrymen and fatherland transcends every other. To fulfill that duty was to me an honor and the supreme law. May this duty, in some happier period of the future, be replaced by a still higher one—by duty to humanity." In fine condition, with light toning and a couple tiny edge tears.
Delivered on August 31, 1946, just weeks before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg would deliver its verdicts, Jodl's speech reflects the broader effort by senior Wehrmacht leaders to recast their roles in World War II amid mounting evidence of Nazi crimes.
Jodl, who served as Chief of the Operations Staff of the German High Command (OKW), frames himself and his fellow officers as apolitical professionals trapped in an “impossible” situation under Hitler’s leadership—a narrative that would later feed into the controversial 'clean Wehrmacht' myth. His emphasis on duty to the fatherland, denial of criminal intent, and moral justification of harsh wartime measures must be understood against the prosecution’s case linking the German military to war crimes. The international tribunal rejected this argument, holding him responsible for the criminal conduct of the German war machine. Jodl was convicted on all counts and executed by hanging on October 16, 1946.
That surviving film shows Jodl delivering these exact words underscores the document’s historical poignancy, situating it not only as a personal defense statement but also as part of the larger historical record of how Nazi Germany’s military elite sought to explain—and defend—their actions in the face of international justice and the emerging postwar order.
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