I'm back from Egypt + today is a sad day !
I just came back from Egypt 2 days ago and it was a great trip ,12 days at the seaside in Marsa Alam by the Red Sea and 2 days in Cairo right next to Tahrir Square for you world news buffs. I will make a post about that after I finish uploading my pictures ,which is taking a while due to my Internet connection that behaves like a pubescent girl.
( Click me , click me !!! )
( Click me , click me !!! )
The death penalty is generally wrong in my view because no one should have control over another persons life in this way, because this is something so serious that the judgement of flawed men(and we're all flawed and biased in some way)cannot warrant such an action and because ultimately no one learns anything. Like, for ex, Eichmann ,instead of killing him they should have tortured him or something, something hard and painful that would haunt him forever not death.
Anyway, this trial, as much as the world deems it necessary(although it did nothing in the end) , was a farce. From a legal stand point it was...illegal, the indictment was made up of accusation that did not exist, they were accused and convicted of committing illegal actions that didn't exist prior to the moment of the trial in the legal system. So, even if some of them(in all trials) were indeed deserving of being condemned as criminals, the way in which they were condemned was still basically illegal. It was ,in the end, just a show put on by the victors. No one was tried from the Allies side for actions just as bad, such as the bombing of Dresden and Hamburg or the atomic bomb or the russian atrocities(for ex : the hundreds of thousand rapes - if not millions - and not just in Germany but in other places as well), the gulags, etc. These were all deemed as necessary and they closed their eyes on what the Soviet Union was doing in order not to piss them off.
All sides did bad things but justice should have been handed equally and individually, fairly.
Jodl was declared innocent on all counts in the '50s by a German tribunal(these tribunals were often even harsher as in they found people guilty of illegalities during the nazi regime and war more easily) and now many actually believe his sentence was wrong. In fact, at the trial, the French judge was very upset that Jodl was given the death penalty.
He's one of my favorite historical figures because of how he was as a person and a professional. He wasn't one of the "famous" figures ,he wasn't "bombastic" and his job didn't give him exposure although he was technically the second man in the army for most of the war . He was Chief of Staff of Operations ,one of the departments in the High Command of the Wehrmacht(OKW) .This meant he was in charge with operations and strategy on all fronts, the general outlines for this sectors and the orders went from his department to the front where they then made specific strategy based on those outlines. It's complicated because u also had the OKH which was the High Command of the Army but just the Army as in ground troops.
Anyway, his only superiors were basically Keitel ,who was Chief of Staff of the OKW ,and Hitler. Practically ,Jodl was more important than Keitel and had more attributes .
Outside that he was a bit of an introvert(a bit more sometimes), very disciplined, very loyal, very hard working, ambitious but in a good way, smart, very organized, very self controlled, calm under pressure, friendly and warm with his friends and family and very honest, there was a great deal of honesty about him, he never pretended to be something else and he was a proud officer(proud not vain or arrogant). I was most impressed by his last letters to his wife though, they were beautiful ,not melodramatic yet full of very honest feeling, love, care and dignity.
You should read the post I made before this one, it's about Jodl as well .
Oh wow, huge comment, sorry!
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