General Jodl's wife denied Holocaust claims, "first heard the names Buchenwald and Belsen the day after the surrender"

[Sannhet]

On November 8, 1945, a United Press reporter interviewed Luise Jodl (1904?-1998) at Nuremburg. She was the wife of General Alfred Jodl, among highest ranking figures of the German Army throughout the war, as Chief of Operations of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht.

His wife's birth name was: Luise Katharina von Benda. They had been married in 1944 after the death of Jodl's first wife to an illness.

Luise Jodl.jpg (13.36 KiB) Viewed 1702 times

The summary of the interview and Luise Jodl's basic claims ran over the United Press wire. (United Press, or UP, was a predecessor to today's United Press International, or UPI; both UP and its successor UPI were/are rivals to the bigger Associated Press or AP.)

This is the article at it appeared in the New York paper The Dunkirk Evening Observer on November 8, 1945; this paper printed nothing but UP stories:

Frau Jodl denies having ever heard anything about any concentration camp atrocities, or even the names of these concentration camps.

Her line "these atrocities" refers specifically to Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen. The UP was, in early November 1945, before the opening of the Nuremburg trial, framing "the Holocaust" (which forty years later this set of facts/allegations/etc. would be called) as something primarily about "Buchenwald and Belsen"!

Also notable that nothing in this brief article specifically mentions gas chambers or Jews.

Col. Gen. Alfred Jodl's wife indicated today that his defense at the war crimes trial will be that he knew nothing about Nazi atrocities and that he was only and officer doing his military duty.

"In his last letter he told me that any real crime should be punished, but he could not see how he was guilty of any crime," she said.

She said she first heard the names Buchenwald and Belsen -- two of the most notorious Nazi concentration camps -- the day after the German surrender.

"I never knew of these atrocities, and neither did my husband," she said.

In case one dismisses Luise Jodl as some kind of "bitter Nazi covering up the gas chambers," note that in the same interview she disparages her own people and the Nazi movement/government by saying:

"[W]e are not politically matured. We have proved that."

In other words, she is in the mood to admit wrongdoing where it existed, but still denies any claim or knowledge of the Holocaust.

[Otium]

note that in the same interview she disparages her own people and the Nazi movement/government by saying:

"[W]e are not politically matured. We have proved that."

Well, if Mrs Jodl were alive to see the 21st century, and if she had any sense in the latter half of the 20th, she certainly should've been thinking differently as to what constituted "political maturity". Because the liberal tyranny we live under right now is most certainly not it.

Liberalism is the historical and logical antechamber of anarchy.

Benito Mussolini, The Doctrine of Fascism, 1932.

Control is integral to our current state of anarchy. Control is implemented by academic institutions, the traitors and non-white 5th columnists currently in government, the media etc. all of which are flooded by Jewish overrepresentation, or at least have been thoroughly bathed in Jewish morality. This is what's controlling the societal anarchy so prevalent in our countries.

There's no unity whatsoever in our societies, just avid consumerism, licentious filth, hyper-white individualism and squabbling over unimportant social nonsense. The solution to our problems is always temporary and usually left in the hands of our vices, which only causes more intrinsic societal problems. I guess you could say that Democracy and Liberalism is the pinnacle of politically matured totalitarian tyranny. The element of control still exists despite the illusion of "choice"; the mobilisation of the masses for support of modern dogmas is immensely successful. In fact, if you do not participate in the causes the regime has decreed we must (Climate fear mongering, Negro worship in the form of BLM, Lysenkoism, Covid-19 hysteria, Globo-Homo agenda, etc.) , or if you're not enthusiastic enough for the manufactured social outrage at these causes, you thereby become a pariah and your commitment to the cause and to the political establishment is called into question. You become isolated in your personal life, from your job (if you're not fired) and censored on the internet. There's no respite, not even in your own mind. In that sense the system of control has been advanced as much by technology as it has through the maturity of politics.

We know, of course, that there is no freedom of speech. But few persons realise that there is no freedom of silence, either. Residents of a communist state are required to make positive statements of belief and loyalty.

Hu Shi, Liberal Chinese Philosopher, quoted in: Frank Dikotter, The Tragedy of Liberation: A History of the Chinese Revolution 1945-1957 (Bloomsbury, 2015), Pp. 185.

Now, I'm not saying we live in a communist state, the people who say that are too eager to associate trends and things that correlate with Communism to our current political predicament. It's not that easy. We don't live in a communist state just yet, but you can see very clearly the cultural marxism that exists on the surface and the push for communistic economic "reforms". Communism is itself the precursor to the "ideal" Anarchy, and Liberalism can be usurped because it doesn't have a backbone, which is it's primary characteristic.

[Sannhet]

The element of control still exists despite the illusion of "choice"; the mobilisation of the masses for support of modern dogmas is immensely successful. In fact, if you do not participate in the causes the regime has decreed we must (Climate fear mongering, Negro worship in the form of BLM, Lysenkoism, Covid-19 hysteria, Globo-Homo agenda, etc.) , or if you're not enthusiastic enough for the manufactured social outrage at these causes, you thereby become a pariah and your commitment to the cause and to the political establishment is called into question. You become isolated in your personal life, from your job (if you're not fired) and censored on the internet. There's no respite, not even in your own mind. In that sense the system of control has been advanced as much by technology as it has through the maturity of politics.

This is a worthwhile reaction to that line by Luise Jodl 75 years ago.

Luise Jodl was born in or about 1904. Those turning seventeen years old this year (2021) were born exactly a century later.

Flashing forward a cool century from Frau Jodl's timeline: What will the Germans born in 2004 be saying in 2045 about "political maturity"?

Will the Holocaust still have hegemonic control in 2045 as it has for the past several decades? That we don't know. But we do know the approximate system, mindset, and Weltanschauung into which the b.2000s cohort (now ages 11 to 21), those a century junior to Mrs. Jodl in age, have been socialized into. Is it political maturity to have a state cult dedicated to often-dubious claims that your own nation is the epitome of Evil in world history?

[Sannhet]

Interesting discovery about Luise Jodl:

Her mother was British.

Luise Jodl wrote a personal appeal for clemency to Winston Churchill in early October 1946, about two weeks before the execution of her husband, Field Marshal Alfred Jodl, at Nuremberg. (Churchill was no longer Prime Minister but was Leader of the Opposition, with more prestige than the actual Prime Minister, Clement Atlee of the Labour Party.) She hoped her British family connection might elicit sympathy from Winston Churchill.

The contents of her letter were summarized in the Sydney Morning Herald, Oct. 5, 1946, page 1:

Fraud Jodl has sent a message to Mr. Churchill, appealing for his intervention on behalf of her husband.

"You were always proud of being a soldier," says the message. "You were the mast when, in deadly peril, Britain kept her flag flying. As the daughter of a British-born mother I appeal to you as a soldier to give your support for the life of my husband, who, like you, did nothing but fight for his country."

I don't know if these few lines are the full text of the letter or if there is more.

I believe the wording here suggests a few things about the general state of "the Holocaust" as of October 1946, its relevance to the overall Nuremberg trial, to the significance of the war, and even to world history. Namely, this:

Luise Jodl understood that Alfred Jodl had been sentenced to death for the crime of waging aggressive war, not for any kind of direct or indirect involvement in "the Holocaust" as we now understand it. She says nothing about the Holocaust, not even to deny Alfred Jodl's involvement i (or point out non-involvement in) gassings or executions of Jews, anything like that.

Maybe there is more to the letter and maybe she does say things like that, in which case we still have the Sydney Morning Herald editors strangely omitting any mention of the Holocaust of the Jews.

[Lamprecht]

Luise Jodl understood that Alfred Jodl had been sentenced to death for the crime of waging aggressive war, not for any kind of direct or indirect involvement in "the Holocaust" as we now understand it. She says nothing about the Holocaust, not even to deny Alfred Jodl's involvement i (or point out non-involvement in) gassings or executions of Jews, anything like that.

Jodl was a high ranking officer in the Wehrmacht, he had nothing to do with the concentration camps. He signed the Commando & Commissar Orders, which had nothing to do with Jews. He was also accused of being involved in the shooting of Soviet POWs. At Nuremberg, Jodl said that he:
"...never heard, either by hint or by written or spoken word, of an extermination of Jews."
He also said:
"I have never had any private information on the extermination of the Jews; and on my word, as sure as I am sitting here, I heard all these things for the first time after the end of the war." (4 June 1946, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/06-04-46.asp)

[Hektor]

Luise Jodl understood that Alfred Jodl had been sentenced to death for the crime of waging aggressive war, not for any kind of direct or indirect involvement in "the Holocaust" as we now understand it. She says nothing about the Holocaust, not even to deny Alfred Jodl's involvement i (or point out non-involvement in) gassings or executions of Jews, anything like that.

Jodl was a high ranking officer in the Wehrmacht, he had nothing to do with the concentration camps. He signed the Commando & Commissar Orders, which had nothing to do with Jews. He was also accused of being involved in the shooting of Soviet POWs. At Nuremberg, Jodl said that he:
"...never heard, either by hint or by written or spoken word, of an extermination of Jews."
He also said:
"I have never had any private information on the extermination of the Jews; and on my word, as sure as I am sitting here, I heard all these things for the first time after the end of the war." (4 June 1946, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/06-04-46.asp)

The thing is that what was claimed could not have stayed hidden, if it were true. For sure not to high-ranking people that have a large circle of acquaintances that would be well informed. Now the Holocaustians take this as proof that Jodl or others were lying. But I think they were telling the truth, when they said that they 'didn't know about it ('the Holocaust').

[Whodunnit?]

Jodl and Keitel were hung because the allies were butthurt about the high casualties. Fun fact: after WW1 the allies tried to do the same, arrest the officers of their enemy and sentence them to death and imprisoment for "war crimes". You will not find a lot of info about this unless you dig really deep, but at the end of WW2 the allies seemingly did what they wanted to do after WW1, but for some reason they dropped the whole thing, released the "criminals" and allowed journalists and politicians to spill the beans about having made the atrocity stories up. The real war crime was shooting back at the allies and hitting the target.

From the Wikipedia-article of August Von Mackensen:

"After the armistice, he and the 200,000 men whom he led back home were rounded up. He was arrested by the agents of the pro-Entente Hungarian leader Mihály Károlyi in Budapest. Mackensen was held in a guarded villa at the edge of Budapest.[21] Later, he was handled over to the representatives of General Louis Franchet d'Espèrey's Allied army, and he was held as a military prisoner in Futog, Serbia, until November 1919.[22] He was one of the 896 Germans on the Allied list of accused war criminals, which was eventually allowed to lapse"

From the Wikipedia-article of Enver Pasha:

" On 30 October 1918, the Ottoman Empire capitulated by signing the Armistice of Mudros. Two days later, the "Three Pashas" all fled into exile. On 1 January 1919, the new government expelled Enver Pasha from the army. He was tried in absentia in the Turkish Courts-Martial of 1919–20 for crimes of "plunging the country into war without a legitimate reason, forced deportation of Armenians and leaving the country without permission" and condemned to death"

Some time ago I read the book "The Eighth Crusade" by an anonymous British officer who fought on the ottoman front. He describes how the Russians had been arming and stirring up Armenian and Greek insurcengies, with the ultimate goal of conquering the Dardanelles and creating Armenia as a buffer state for Azerbaijan with it's oil fields in Baku, the french were doing the same with the syrian christians, and the British wanted to create a landbridge between Egypt and Persia. Persia wasn't officially a colony, but pretty much under the thumb of the British and Russians, with the oil field of Persia in the hands of the british. Conquering Palestine was designed to protect the Suez Canal. Greeks and Italians also wanted a piece off of Turkey. I think 3 empires inciting ethnic conflict in your country and plotting to take your land appart is a very legitimate reason for war.

And of course, everybody here knows that in WW1 already there were stories about gas chambers, soap from human flesh and other fine things from the corpse factories.

Just like after WW2, the war winners acted like they were entirely innocent, and were attacked for no reason whatsoever. The fact that after the war they stabbed the Arabs in the back and declared Syria, Iraq and Palestine colonies was... an accident. They had accidentally enlaged their empire just as Pasha had feared they would.

As far as I remember, during the Nuremberg trials Goering was the only one who maintained that most of these atrocity stories were made up, that the allies had themselves commited massive war crimes and had no moral leg to stand on, and was calling everybody who confirmed their allegations a traitor.

But with Mrs.Jodl you see the problem you often have with people from the upper classes of society: they are oversocialized, their biggest fear is getting ejected from the international "polite society", so they are willing to compromise. She goes further than saying "I didn't know", she kicks down and pushes the guilt onto the German populace. It is basically what every criminal in court tries to do, exculpate himself by blaming his action on his bad company, drugs or a mental illness - without these additional factors, he of course would have never done any of that. My mental illness made me do it.

The defense of the German elite was that it was pathological germanness that made them do it. Saying "Yes, but" is easier than saying "no", if you have a noose dangling over your head. Being German was the mental illness, and they promised to collaborate in the treatment of that illness. While the average German Wehrmacht soldier pushed all the guilt on the SS, btw. In the end, all Germans are oversocialized, which makes them both the least likely to commit these "indecencies", but also the most likely to compromise and concede.
Being "typically German" is still regarded as the nucleus of fascism.

[Hektor]

Jodl and Keitel as well as the others were hanged not because of any ill-feelings of the Allies (although such were generated by them for them). They were hanged, because they were pretty knowledgeable on what went on (before and) during world war two. Bear in mind that they 'knew nothing about the Holocaust' and also knew (especially in the case of Germany) about how policies actually came into being and also why. Imagine those guys writing books on the matter, publishing them in the 1950s. They'd be quite explanatory and persuasive and that's what the Allies or rather their political, economic and intellectual elites had to fear.

WW1 attempts at trial:
Germany wasn't occupied. The army never beaten. But the Germans were too naive to trust the Allies to make an armistice, which they regretted bitterly.
The Kaiser's government was toppled and Germany became a (multiparty, parliamentary republic). Indeed there were demands that they hand over the 'war criminals'. But that was refused and rejected. Although offers were made that those accused could be put in front of 'neutral courts', which was rejected by the Allies. There was also quite some literature that rejected the atrocity propaganda and it seems the authors had no problems with finding publishers and distributing those books.

Indeed there was some blame-shifting between segments and persons of the German apparatus. One thing was indeed to 'blame the SS'. And indeed I think many Germans did resent their pushiness in the end-phase 1945. But it's quite a humane thing to 'search for one to blame', when misfortune had befallen them. The accusations of course fueled that. Also bear in mind that the Allied essentially installed those parties into power in Germany that were banned by the NSDAP meaning that they had an axe to grind as well. Select a media to your liking and you can shape opinions and attitudes of future generations.

An yes, there is many 'well-off' people that would compromise on what they know or believe, if that makes them more popular with 'polite society'. That's btw. how one can change a whole societies 'moral orientation', since the poorer people emulate the richer ones, the 'less educated' the more educate ones, etc. And well people try to fit in the social norms of their group. They feel uncomfortable, when their norms, behavior's, tastes conflict with the groups norms. Or the other way round of course. So they assimilate to group norms or reject the group and distance themselves from it. Collective gas lighting makes people believe that there is something evil with their group's norms and if the group starts buying this they start 'changing'. It's a social process of course and it takes time. And it may need to be hammered.

And well, the 'new elites' were greatly corrupt opportunists like Konrad Adenauer. Who did exactly what was expected from him. That was perhaps a key difference to Kurt Schumacher of the SPD... He was far more Nationalist in his attitude. Probably, because nobody could credibly call him 'a Nazi'.

Again: Imagine Goering, Rosenberg, Streicher, Kaltenbrunner, Frank, Jodl, Keitel, Seyss-Inquart, Sauckel, Ribbentrop being alive and free in Germany after World War Two. Imagine them writing books and articles and give interviews to neutral journalists and also finding a large audience for those books. Establishing widespread Belief in Holocaust Dogma and World War Two would have been impossible. Imagine texts of them being translated in other languages and finding widespread readership. Imagine them giving interviews in documentaries and this being widely spread and listened to. The whole war effort may have been in vain... And this may actually have taken another turn in many other countries. So from the Allied (their elites) point of view, this had to be prevented. Killing them or putting them into isolative custody would have been the only option the Allies had, regardless of their guilt or not. The imprisonment of Rudolf Hess can serve as example here. Especially the British were very afraid of an early release of him.

That risk wasn't a given with the other accused. Who were released on later stages. Although there was a scandalization in a school were Doenitz was invited to speak. It was organized by Uwe Barschel. Who became a politician in Schleswig-Holstein. He was was later found murdered in a Hotel-Room in Switzerland.
The other lower ranking people could not say much more than that they 'did not know about the extermination of the Jews'. Which is held against them as 'repressing memory' or some sort of 'denial'. Leftist Germans wrote text in that line that everybody should have known or did know, but isn't dealing with this 'guilt by rationalization'. They said this, while the vast majority of their party's members did not know about this neither.

[Whodunnit?]

Jodl and Keitel as well as the others were hanged not because of any ill-feelings of the Allies (although such were generated by them for them). They were hanged, because they were pretty knowledgeable on what went on (before and) during world war two.

I disagree. Don't overestimate the rationality of the people that rule us. If they always would have a well thought out calculus, this forum wouldn't exist. They wouldn't have presented us a story with so many "plot holes". They wouldn't have accused the "defendents" of crimes that sound like they were taken out of some looney tunes-cartoon.

If Stalin would have been a rational, forward-thinking person, he wouldn't have allowed his army to rape their way through eastern Europe and also genocide Eastern Germany. He would have seized the opportunity to look like a liberator, and liberators don't rape millions of women. Remember that they did not only rape millions of women in Germany, but also Romania, Hungary, even Poland. There are even "Holocaust survivors" that claim they were raped by Red Army-soldiers. When they told them that they were jewish Nazi victims and not Germans, the Red Armist's just replied "Frau ist Frau". From there on the eastern Europeans never looked at the Red Army as "liberators", but as brutal occupiers. The red army's brutality in 1945 and 46 continued to undermine the legitimacy of the regimes in the post-war eastern block.

It also was a strategical error to erradicate the landbridge between Russia and Germany. Now Nato used Poland as a wedge between both countries. These were all dumb, short sighted and entirely impulsive decisions driven by a desire for revenge.

We also have quotes from Eisenhower, FDR and several of their minions that there was a very strong desire for revenge. (For example Eisenhowers "God I hate the Germans" and "We didn't kill enough of them")

For a long time I also overestimated the intelligence of the people on top of the hierarchie, but at some point I came to the conclusion that they are often driven by emotions and impulsiveness. Their plans often go wrong, and their solutions make the problem worse, and they don't like to be humiliated. Germany humiliated them in both world wars, because they did not plan on such long and costly wars. They don't like being humiliated.

Keitel and Jodl didn't know more than Speer and Dönitz. The press in Germany also wasn't free. Several authors were barred from publishing. Some for life, so only for a few years, like Ernst Jünger.

The German army in WW1 wasn't beaten in the field, but a war is lost when the government concedes defeat by signing a contract, and the 1918-armistice meant that Germany had lost.

After the armistice, hundred thousands of German and Austro-Hungarian troops were taken prisoner, including Generals. The weapons were either handed over to the allies or destroyed. So the army was demobilized and Germany was demilitarized. The allies could have marched into Germany like they did in 1923, or just demanded the German government to hand the alleged "war criminals" over. The fact that Britain continued to starve Europe with their naval blockade until mid 1919 didn't lead to the German navy to attack their ships, or any other military action against this act of war. Romania attacked Hungary on the 13th of November 1918, which lead to the short Romanian-Hungarian war. At the same time the Czechoslovak army marched into Austria and looted the country. There was no military resistance anymore.

So if the allies wanted to, they could have had their IMT in 1919, but for some reason they didn't follow through. I guess at that time there were still more adults in the room than in 1945.

[Hektor]

Jodl and Keitel as well as the others were hanged not because of any ill-feelings of the Allies (although such were generated by them for them). They were hanged, because they were pretty knowledgeable on what went on (before and) during world war two.

I disagree. Don't overestimate the rationality of the people that rule us. If they always would have a well thought out calculus, this forum wouldn't exist. They wouldn't have presented us a story with so many "plot holes". They wouldn't have accused the "defendents" of crimes that sound like they were taken out of some looney tunes-cartoon.

Point taken, but you can bet that those that are in prominent positions and part of the functional elites, will be rational where it is relevant.

It is the cartoonishness of the accusations that made them especially potent and believable to people. They simply can't imagine that somebody would be lying on such a scale. The content of the accusation may lack rationality, but it is perfectly rational to make such an accusations for purposeful rational reasons. Especially when your intent is too drive people crazy with this. Being accused of something obnoxious that is untrue and no way of defending yourself against it. This takes a toll on people's mental health and some people think that they can benefit from this.

If Stalin would have been a rational, forward-thinking person, he wouldn't have allowed his army to rape their way through eastern Europe and also genocide Eastern Germany. He would have seized the opportunity to look like a liberator, and liberators don't rape millions of women. Remember that they did not only rape millions of women in Germany, but also Romania, Hungary, even Poland. There are even "Holocaust survivors" that claim they were raped by Red Army-soldiers. When they told them that they were jewish Nazi victims and not Germans, the Red Armist's just replied "Frau ist Frau". From there on the eastern Europeans never looked at the Red Army as "liberators", but as brutal occupiers. The red army's brutality in 1945 and 46 continued to undermine the legitimacy of the regimes in the post-war eastern block.

Sounds plausible as well. But did Stalin have another choice there? Discipling his army would be reactionary, counterrevolutionary. So there was no chance doing this at no cost for combat effectiveness. After all he could see how the Germans were put at a loss, due to trying to abide to rules of warfare. It wasn't really thanked them neither. There is also the issue that if you give people a prospect of rape and loot, they may actually fight far more aggressively, especially, if you already instilled emotions of hate, vengeance in them. The only ideal they could offer was 'fighting for mother Russia'... But that wasn't really that convincing given that Communists are 'Internationalists'. In fact it seems that Soviet Propaganda toned down that Internationalism and Class struggle rhetoric quite a bit, since they realized that it wasn't really conducive, when placed in a defensive position.

And well, while the red army rapes are rather well known (Just glossed over, after all the victims were Nazis), the Western Allies weren't much better in their conduct. E.g. I heard several reports from older people from the Netherlands and Belgium that told how Allied soldiers behaved towards girls and younger women at the time of 'liberation'. And that wasn't only limited to Allied soldiers (Americans, British, French). Antifascist "Resistance Fighters" also participated in this kind of behavior. So it's more a difference of degree, but not of category.

On the other hand, if you mobilize millions of people, you always will have some rather vile individuals among them plus some week minded ones and they can do a lot of rather nasty stuff, when they are not kept in check by officers and senior staff in the army.

If you can get more information on Non-German victims of Red-Army rapes, please feel free to post this.

It also was a strategical error to erradicate the landbridge between Russia and Germany. Now Nato used Poland as a wedge between both countries. These were all dumb, short sighted and entirely impulsive decisions driven by a desire for revenge.

We also have quotes from Eisenhower, FDR and several of their minions that there was a very strong desire for revenge. (For example Eisenhowers "God I hate the Germans" and "We didn't kill enough of them")

For a long time I also overestimated the intelligence of the people on top of the hierarchie, but at some point I came to the conclusion that they are often driven by emotions and impulsiveness. Their plans often go wrong, and their solutions make the problem worse, and they don't like to be humiliated. Germany humiliated them in both world wars, because they did not plan on such long and costly wars. They don't like being humiliated.

"Desire for Revenge" is a bit misleading. What did Germans do to FDR or Eisenhower. I get it that a Russian would think that Russia was unjustly attacked by the Germans, although many realized that this may not have been the case. The Wehrmacht stood on there ground, while the Red Army was never in Germany before. To simpleminded people that may settle the case. Looking at the facts of the matter and being rational with them, does however yield a different picture.

The Allies planned on killing far more Germans then they actually did. And lets face it. Having destroyed half of the residential buildings, but killing only a million by bombing is a remarkably low score on kills that one could have expected as well. Also note that the coming up of the 'cold war' forced a change in policy towards Germany on both sides of what became the iron curtain. Especially to Soviet Russia Germany was an asset and they couldn't simply go on their with the mayhem, since it was the first sight to look at from the Western perspective. Rather tone it down, before the Western working class gets too much of the idea that Communism isn't that good for them neither.

As for Wester Germany, if this is suffering so do the surrounding countries as well. There was hunger in the Netherlands still long after WW2. Simple reason being that the Dutch make their money by trading with Germany. They have industries of themselves of course, but not remotely enough to sustain their workforce sufficiently. And poor working class people can become a hot bad for 'revolutionaries'. Marxism is a folly, but there were reasons why it appealed to many prior to World War Two. Meanwhile the Left has thrown the workers under the bus and focuses on rather benign issues that 'offend them'. But it wasn't always like that.

Keitel and Jodl didn't know more than Speer and Dönitz. The press in Germany also wasn't free. Several authors were barred from publishing. Some for life, so only for a few years, like Ernst Jünger.

The German army in WW1 wasn't beaten in the field, but a war is lost when the government concedes defeat by signing a contract, and the 1918-armistice meant that Germany had lost.

After the armistice, hundred thousands of German and Austro-Hungarian troops were taken prisoner, including Generals. The weapons were either handed over to the allies or destroyed. So the army was demobilized and Germany was demilitarized. The allies could have marched into Germany like they did in 1923, or just demanded the German government to hand the alleged "war criminals" over. The fact that Britain continued to starve Europe with their naval blockade until mid 1919 didn't lead to the German navy to attack their ships, or any other military action against this act of war. Romania attacked Hungary on the 13th of November 1918, which lead to the short Romanian-Hungarian war. At the same time the Czechoslovak army marched into Austria and looted the country. There was no military resistance anymore.

So if the allies wanted to, they could have had their IMT in 1919, but for some reason they didn't follow through. I guess at that time there were still more adults in the room than in 1945.

Well, compare what Keitel/Jodl said at the IMT with what SPEER/DOENITZ said. The former were far more knowledgeable and eloquent than the later there. The later being in more specialized positions as well. And JODL had quite some backbone as well. Jodl backing the German right afterwards would be a huge problem for continued Allied control in Western Germany.

The Germans expected more of a knock-off agreement there. With no major loss of territory or reparations or other types of conniving. They assumed Wilsons 14points to be the guidelines there. But it turned out to be a ruse. And they were then coerced in signing the Versailles Treaty. Which was widely seen as a betrayal.

Invading Germany wholesale, would have been a disaster for the Allies as well. So rather leave the Germans with a 'legal problem' to solve there. And keep them disunited fighting each other over benign politics there. Additionally extending the War was also a problem in Allied countries. They also lost support for the war effort at this stage.

Also, the stage for a trial wasn't as well prepared as it was in 1945. Lots of considerations to look at, before judging the situation and decisions there.

The other thing to consider is that the Strategy was to turn one German on the other. Let the Army blame the SS. The other parties the NSDAP. The liberals the conservatives, the Catholics the Protestants, etc. The arising mayhem would be the field for doing 'cultural change for the Germans'. Since under those circumstances change in the superstructure can be done. Planting the 'right people' into academia, trade unions, churches, civil society etc. And have them change the concept the Germans had of themselves towards one that can be molded and manipulated. Essentially this is an application of Gramsci, Lewin and the Frankfurt School there. The later appears to have had three or more goals. Destroy "repressive" sexual morality. Destroy 'patriarchy' and 'the family' and destroy 'German ethnocentrism'. The question why 'The Germans hated the Jews' is often asked... But the answer is barely given. But one also needs to ask the question why 'The Jews hated the Germans'. And they had it with 'the culture', 'the mores', 'the traditions'. This actually exceeded Jewish dislike for Goyim in general. And also was expressed by 'secularized Jews'.. So the religious angle isn't enough. Although there was always an animosity among Jews against Christianity. With Germany being both the country that was the 'protector of the Western Church', as well as being the country of the Reformation (Martin Luther) and the Anabaptists. Sure that has got some symbolic significance there. But it's also the significance of Germany as an industrial power as well as in the Arts and Sciences. There is of course a lot envy that will be looking in disgust onto this. The targets for internment in Allied countries were mostly modestly wealthy Germans with some higher education. And those doing the harassment were commonly individuals of lower status among the non-German population. So the envy factor can not be underestimate I think.