[The Defendant Keitel took the stand.]
THE PRESIDENT: Will you state your full name?
WILHELM KEITEL (Defendant): Wilhelm Keitel.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you repeat this oath after me:
I swear by God—the Almighty and Omniscient—that I will speak the pure truth—and will withhold and add nothing.
[The defendant repeated the oath in German.]
THE PRESIDENT: You may sit down if you wish.
DR. NELTE: Please describe your military career briefly.
KEITEL: In the year 1901, in the beginning of March, I became an officer candidate in an artillery regiment of the Prussian Army. At the beginning of the first World War, in 1914, I was the regimental adjutant of my regiment. I was wounded in September 1914, and in the beginning of November I became chief of a battery of my regiment. Since the spring of 1915 I served in various general staff capacities, first with higher commands of the field army, later as a general staff officer of a division. Towards the end I was the first general staff officer of the Naval Corps in Flanders. Then I joined the Reichswehr as a volunteer. Beginning with the year 1929 I was Division Head (Abteilungsleiter) of the Army Organizational Division in the Reichswehrministerium. After an interruption from 1933 to 1935 I became, on 1 October 1935, Chief of the Wehrmacht Department (Wehrmachtsamt) of the Reichskriegsminister, that is Chief of Staff with the Minister of War. While on active service I became Generalmajor. At that time I was chief of an infantry brigade. On 4 February 1938 to my surprise I was appointed Chief of Staff of the Führer, or Chief of the OKW—Oberkommando der Wehrmacht. On 1 October 1939, I became General of the Infantry and after the campaign in the West in 1940 I became Field Marshal.
DR. NELTE: Were you a member of the National Socialist German Labor Party?