High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Wilhelm Bodewin Gustav Keitel (22 September 1882-16 October 1946) was a German field marshal (Generalfeldmarschall). As head of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (High Command of the Armed Forces) and de facto war minister, he was one of Germany's most senior military leaders during World War II. At the Allied court at Nuremberg he was tried, sentenced to death and hanged as a major war criminal. Keitel was born in Helmscherode (now a part of Bad Gandersheim, Lower Saxony), Brunswick, German Empire, the son of Carl Keitel, a middle-class landowner, and his wife Apollonia Vissering. After completing his education in Göttingen, he embarked on a military career in 1901, becoming a Fahnenjunker (Cadet Officer), joining the 6th Lower-Saxon Field Artillery Regiment. He married Lisa Fontaine, a wealthy landowner's daughter, in 1909.