Biographical Summary:

• Graduate of artillery officer's academy.
• 1914 wounded at Flanders.
• 1915 posted to General Staff.
• 1918-1936 senior military posts.
• 1937 appointed head of the OKW - Oberkommando der Wehrmarcht - "Supreme Command of the Armed Forces" (Joint Chief's of Staff).
• 1940 promoted to Field Marshall.
• Signed numerous criminal orders approving the military's execution of Soviet Commissars ("Commissar Order"), executions of civilian hostages, shooting of French pilots serving in the USSR, execution of captured commandos, and the army's cooperation with the SS-Security Police Einsatzgruppen mobile extermination units in Poland and the USSR.
• Passed death sentences as a judge on court-marshals of Army officers accused of conspiring to kill Hitler on July 20, 1944.
• Tied with Joachim von Ribbentrop for the tenth highest IQ score from the 21 tested defendants: 129.