Alfred Jodl

Alfred Josef Ferdinand Jodl [IPA: alfɐɛt joːdl] (10 May 1890 – 16 October 1946) was a German military commander, attaining the position of Chief of the Operations Staff of the Armed Forces High Command (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, or OKW) during World War II, acting as deputy to Wilhelm Keitel.

Background
Alfred Jodl was born out of wedlock as Alfred Josef Ferdinand Baumgärtler in Würzburg, Germany, the son of Officer Alfred Jodl and Therese Baumgärtler, assuming the surname Jodl upon his parents' marriage in 1899. He was educated at Cadet School in Munich, from which he graduated in 1910. General Ferdinand Jodl was his younger brother. The philosopher and psychologist Friedrich Jodl at the University of Vienna was his uncle.

After schooling, Jodl joined the army as an artillery officer. During World War I he served as a battery officer on the Western Front from 1914–1916, twice being wounded.

Jodl's appointment as a major in the operations branch of the Truppenamt in the Army High Command in the last days of the Weimar Republic put him under command of General Ludwig Beck, who recognised Jodl as "a man with a future", although it was only on September 1939 that Jodl met with Adolf Hitler for the first time.

During the Battle of Britain Jodl was optimistic of Britain's demise and on 30 June 1940 wrote "The final German victory over England is now only a question of time."

He was injured during the 20 July plot of 1944 against Hitler. Because of this, Jodl was awarded the special wounded badge alongside several other leading Nazi figures. He was also rather vocal about his suspicions that others had not endured wounds as strong as his own, often downplaying the effects of the plot on others.

At the end of World War II in Europe, Jodl signed the instruments of unconditional surrender on 7 May 1945 in Reims as the representative of Karl Dönitz.

At the Nuremberg Trials he was tried, convicted, sentenced to death and hanged as a war criminal.

In Downfall
In Der Untergang, Alfred Jodl is first shown in the "Hitler Plans Scene". After Keitel exhorts Hitler to retreat the 9th army, Jodl interjects Hitler and tells him that "then the 9th army is lost". Hitler then retorts with a plan to counterattack and save the 9th army. Alfred Jodl thought the plan was impractical, so after Hitler answers to Krebs' queries, he fervently objects to Hitler having the 12th army move in to reinforce the 9th, turning Hitler fuming mad and starting an argument with Jodl. In the end, he was silenced when Hitler remarked that he was not obeying orders.

Although Jodl had great dissastisfaction for Hitler, he considers himself an honorable soldier and refuses to leave, betray or ignore Hitler's orders (unlike Fegelein and Himmler). In "The Generals Discuss Hitler Scene", he complained about Hitler's "Insanity" but rebuked Fegelein's suggestion to ignore Hitler's orders. Jodl only played a minor role in the subsequent scenes he appeared in, where he was mostly silent.

He was also the least fanatic to the least Nazi of the 4 generals, Keitel, Krebs, Burgdorf and himself. When the bunker was about to be evacuated he was supposedly still around, as he was last seen shaking Hitler's hand, while Krebs and Burgdorf shot themselves.

List of appearances
Though he is considered a main character, his appearances are fewer than that of Fegelein's.
 * Hitler Planning Scene (his most prominent appearance)
 * Hitler's Generals Discussing Scene
 * Original Bunker Scene - Jodl breaks the news of Steiner's inability to launch the attack on the Soviets, after Krebs fails to.
 * Fegelein and Friends (cameo)
 * (montage cameo)

Downfall parody universe
In the Downfall universe, he was often the staple of ridicule among the bunker occupants, as most of his fellow comrades, and even Hitler himself, poke fun at his bald head (such as calling him a bald virgin) and, like Göring, his fat body (The real life Alfred Jodl was actually quite thin and was bald only on the top of his head).

One of the parodies explained that Jodl once had normal hair like everybody, until Fegelein burned it off during a prank.

Some of his parodies consists that he was a fan of Justin Bieber, along with his un-named daughter, who was not mentioned.

He is perhaps, most notable for his objections, which pisses off Hitler.

Hitler fires Jodl at one point, because he was getting sick and tired of his objections. However, because of strikes causing problems in the bunker, Hitler plans to rehire him. During the re-hirement, again Jodl objects to one of Hitlers comments. He does get rehired though.

After some time, instead of firing Jodl, Hitler plans to replace him.

Jodl gets replaced by Mohnke, who does not object to Hitler's global domination plan. Meanwhile Jodl knows this plan will fail and needs to stop it. Many think the plan will end in vain, but Hitler does not want to cancel his plan which would mean he has to rehire Jodl. Eventually Mohnke feels the same way and cancels the plan himself, leading to Jodl's re-hirement.

In some rare cases, Jodl actually doesn't object Hitler's plans. In these cases however, either someone else objects it or Jodl doesn't object, but Hitler would wanted it.

Jodl was once hired to replace Günsche when he quit as informer. However, since Jodl did the job a bit too well, he was abruptly fired from the position.

His Stalin Parody counterpart is Nikita Kruschev and his Gaddafi parody counterpart is Saif al-Islam Gaddafi. He also has a Mirror Parody Universe counterpart named Ldoj Derfla, who tries to object to Reltih's plans, only to receive objections from Reltih.

Trivia

 * On 28 February 1953, the München Hauptspruchkammer (Main denazification court) declared Jodl not guilty of the main charges brought against him at Nuremberg, citing the French co-President of the Tribunal, Henri Donnedieu de Vabres, who had in 1946 called the verdict against Jodl a mistake. In any case, this declaration did not affect the verdict of the International Military Tribunal, whose decisions were not subject to review by German courts.
 * Alfred Jodl had an IQ of 126. (This means he had some good reasons why he always objected, many of which Hitler obviously didn't accept.)