Branch: Luftwaffe
Born: 30 November 1885 in Marktsteft, Kingdom of Bavaria,
German Empire.
Died: 16 July 1960 in Bad Nauheim, West Germany.
Ranks:
Generalfeldmarschall
Generaloberst
General der Flieger
General der Infanterie
Generalleutnant
Generalmajor
Oberst
Oberstleutnant
Major
Hauptmann
Oberleutnant
Leutnant
F�hnrich
Decorations:
Commands:
Other: Personnel
Articles:
Albert Kesselring was born on 30 November 1885 and became
a German Luftwaffe Generalfeldmarschall during World War II.
In a military career that spanned both World Wars, Albert
Kesselring became one of Nazi Germany's most skilful commanders,
being one of 27 soldiers awarded the Knight's Cross of the
Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds. Nicknamed
Smiling Albert by the Allies and Uncle Albert by his troops,
he was one of the most popular generals of World War II with
the rank and file.
Albert Kesselring joined the Bavarian Army as an officer cadet
in 1904, and served in the artillery branch. He completed
training as a balloon observer in 1912. During World War I,
he served on both the Western and Eastern fronts and was posted
to the General Staff, despite not having attended the War
Academy. Albert Kesselring remained in the Army after the
war but was discharged in 1933 to become head of the Department
of Administration at the Reich Commissariat for Aviation,
where he was involved in the re-establishment of the aviation
industry and the laying of the foundations for the Luftwaffe,
serving as its Chief of Staff from 1936 to 1938.
During World War II he commanded air forces in the invasions
of Poland and France, the Battle of Britain, and Operation
Barbarossa. As Commander-in-Chief South, he was overall German
commander in the Mediterranean theatre, which included the
operations in North Africa. Albert Kesselring conducted an
uncompromising defensive campaign against the Allied forces
in Italy until he was injured in an accident in October 1944.
In the final campaign of the war, he commanded German forces
on the Western Front. He won the respect of his Allied opponents
for his military accomplishments, but his record was marred
by massacres committed by troops under his command in Italy.
After the war, Albert Kesselring was tried for war crimes
and sentenced to death. The sentence was subsequently commuted
to life imprisonment. A political and media campaign resulted
in his release in 1952, ostensibly on health grounds. He was
one of only three Generalfeldmarschalls to publish his memoirs,
entitled Soldat bis zum letzten Tag (A Soldier to the Last
Day).
Early life
Albert Kesselring was born in Marktsteft, Bavaria, on 30 November
1885,the son of Carl Adolf Kesselring, a schoolmaster and
town councillor, and his wife Rosina, who was born a Kesselring,
being Carl's second cousin. Albert's early years were spent
in Marktsteft, where relatives had operated a brewery since
1688.
Matriculating from the Christian Ernestinum Secondary School
in Bayreuth in 1904, Albert Kesselring joined the German Army
as an Fahnenjunker (officer cadet) in the 2nd Bavarian Foot
Artillery Regiment. The regiment was based at Metz and was
responsible for maintaining its forts. He remained with the
regiment until 1915, except for periods at the Military Academy
from 1905 to 1906, at the conclusion of which he received
his commission as a Leutnant (lieutenant), and at the School
of Artillery and Engineering in Munich from 1909 to 1910.
Albert Kesselring married Luise Anna Pauline (Liny) Keyssler,
the daughter of an apothecary from Bayreuth, in 1910. The
couple honeymooned in Italy. Their marriage was childless,
but in 1913 they adopted Rainer, the son of Albert's second
cousin Kurt Kesselring. In 1912, Albert Kesselring completed
training as a balloon observer in a dirigible section - an
early sign of an interest in aviation. Albert Kesselring's
superiors considered posting him to the School of Artillery
and Engineering as an instructor because of his expertise
in the interplay between tactics and technology.
First World War
During First World War, Albert Kesselring served with his
regiment in Lorraine until the end of 1914, when he was transferred
to the 1st Bavarian Foot Artillery, which formed part of the
Sixth Army. On 19 May 1916, he was promoted to Hauptmann (captain).
In 1916 he was transferred again, to the 3rd Bavarian Foot
Artillery.He distinguished himself in the Battle of Arras,
using his tactical acumen to halt a British advance. For his
services on the Western Front, he was decorated with the Iron
Cross 2nd Class and 1st Class.
In 1917, he was posted to the General Staff, despite having
not attended the Bavarian War Academy. He served on the Eastern
Front on the staff of the 1st Bavarian Landwehr Division.
In January 1918, he returned to the Western Front as a staff
officer with the II and III Bavarian Corps.
Between the wars
At the conclusion of the war, Albert Kesselring was involved
in the demobilisation (as mandated by the Treaty of Versailles)
of III Bavarian Corps in the Nuremberg area. A dispute with
the leader of the local Freikorps led to the issuance of an
arrest warrant for his alleged involvement in a putsch against
the command of III Bavarian Corps and Albert Kesselring was
thrown into prison. He was soon released but his superior,
Major Hans Seyler, censured him for having failed to display
the requisite discretion.
From 1919 to 1922, Albert Kesselring served as a battery commander
with the 24th Artillery Regiment. He joined the Reichswehr
on 1 October 1922 and was posted to the Military Training
Department at the Reichswehr Ministry in Berlin. He remained
at this post until 1929, when he returned to Bavaria as commander
of Wehrkreis VII in Munich.In his time with the Reichswehr
Ministry, Albert Kesselring was involved in the organisation
of the army, trimming staff overheads to produce the best
possible army with the limited resources available. He helped
reorganise the Ordnance Department, laying the groundwork
for the research and development efforts that would produce
new weapons. He was involved in secret military manoeuvres
held in the Soviet Union in 1924 and in the so-called Great
Plan for a 102-division army, which was prepared in 1923 and
1924.After another brief stint at the Reichswehr Ministry,
Albert Kesselring was promoted to Oberstleutnant (lieutenant
colonel) in 1930 and spent two years in Dresden with the 4th
Artillery Regiment.
Against his wishes, Albert Kesselring was discharged from
the army on 1 October 1933 and appointed head of the Department
of Administration at the Reich Commissariat for Aviation (Reichskommissariat
für die Luftfahrt), the forerunner of the Reich Air Ministry
(Reichsluftfahrtministerium), with the rank of Oberst (colonel).Since
the Treaty of Versailles forbade Germany from establishing
an air force, this was nominally a civilian agency. The Luftwaffe
would formally be established in 1935. As chief of administration,
he had to assemble his new staff from scratch. He was involved
in the re-establishment of the aviation industry and the construction
of secret factories, forging alliances with industrialists
and aviation engineers.He was promoted to Generalmajor (major
general) in 1934 and Generalleutnant (lieutenant general)
in 1936. Like other generals of Nazi Germany, he received
personal payments from
Adolf
Hitler, in Albert Kesselring's case, RM 6,000, a considerable
sum at the time.
At the age of 48, he learned to fly. Albert Kesselring believed
that first-hand knowledge of all aspects of aviation was crucial
to being able to command airmen, although he was well aware
that latecomers like himself did not impress the old pioneers
or the young aviators. He qualified in various single and
multi-engined aircraft and continued flying three or four
days per week until March 1945. At times, his flight path
took him over the concentration camps at Oranienburg, Dachau,
and Buchenwald.
Following the death of Generalleutnant Walther Wever in an
air crash, Albert Kesselring became Chief of Staff of the
Luftwaffe on 3 June 1936. In that post, Albert Kesselring
oversaw the expansion of the Luftwaffe, the acquisition of
new aircraft types such as the
Messerschmitt
Bf 109 and
Junkers
Ju 87, and the development of paratroops. Like many ex-Army
officers, he tended to see air power in the tactical role,
providing support to land operations. Albert Kesselring and
Hans-Jürgen Stumpff, are usually blamed for the turning
away from strategic bombing and planning while over-focusing
on close air support with the army. However, it would seem
the two most prominent enthusiasts for the focus on ground-support
operations (direct or indirect) were actually Hugo Sperrle
and Hans Jeschonnek. These men were long-time professional
airmen involved in German air services since early in their
careers. The Luftwaffe was not pressured into ground support
operations because of pressure from the army, or because it
was led by ex-army personnel like Albert Kesselring. Interdiction
and close air support were operations that suited the Luftwaffe's
pre-existing approach to warfare, a culture of joint inter-service
operations, rather than independent strategic air campaigns.
Moreover, many in the Luftwaffe command believed medium bombers
to be sufficient in power for use in strategic bombing operations
against Germany's most likely enemies, Britain and France.
Albert Kesselring's main operational task during this time
was the support of the Condor Legion in the Spanish Civil
War. However, his tenure was marred by personal and professional
conflicts with his superior, General der Flieger
Erhard
Milch, and Albert Kesselring asked to be relieved. The
head of the Luftwaffe,
Hermann
Göring, acquiesced and Albert Kesselring became the
commander of Air District III in Dresden. On 1 October 1938,
he was promoted to General der Flieger (air general) and became
commander of Luftflotte 1, based in Berlin.
World War Two
Poland
In the Polish campaign that began World War II, Albert Kesselring's
Luftflotte 1 operated in support of Heeresgruppe Nord (Army
Group North), commanded by Generaloberst Fedor von Bock. Although
not under von Bock's command, Albert Kesselring worked closely
with Bock and considered himself under Bock's orders in all
matters pertaining to the ground war. Albert Kesselring strove
to provide the best possible close air support to the ground
forces and used the flexibility of air power to concentrate
all available air strength at critical points, such as during
the Battle of the Bzura. He attempted to cut the Polish communications
by making a series of air attacks against Warsaw, but found
that even 1,000 kg (2,200 lb) bombs could not guarantee that
bridges would be destroyed.
Albert Kesselring was himself shot down over Poland by the
Polish Air Force. In all, he would be shot down five times
during World War II. For his part in the Polish campaign,
Albert Kesselring was personally awarded the Knight's Cross
of the Iron Cross by
Adolf
Hitler
Western Europe
Albert Kesselring's Luftflotte 1 was not involved in the preparations
for the campaigns in the west. Instead it remained in the
east on garrison duty, establishing new air bases and an Air
Raid Precautions network in occupied Poland. However, after
the Mechelen Incident, in which an aircraft made a forced
landing in Belgium with copies of the German invasion plan,
Hermann
Göring relieved the commander of Luftflotte 2, General
der Flieger Hellmuth Felmy, of his command, and appointed
Albert Kesselring in his place. Albert Kesselring flew to
his new headquarters at Münster the very next day, 13
January 1940. As Felmy's chief of staff, Generalmajor
Josef
Kammhuber, had also been relieved, Albert Kesselring brought
his own chief of staff, Generalmajor Wilhelm Speidel, with
him.
Arriving in the west, Albert Kesselring found Luftflotte 2
operating in support of von Bock's Heeresgruppe B (Army Group
B). He inherited from Felmy a complex air plan requiring on-the-minute
timing for several hours, incorporating an airborne operation
around Rotterdam and The Hague to seize airfields and bridges
in the fortress Holland area. The paratroopers were General
der Flieger
Kurt
Student's airborne forces that depended on a quick link
up with the mechanised forces. To facilitate this, Albert
Kesselring promised von Bock the fullest possible close air
support. Air and ground operations, however, were to commence
simultaneously, so there would be no time to suppress the
defending Royal Netherlands Air Force.
The Battle of the Netherlands commenced on 10 May 1940. While
initial air operations went well, and Albert Kesselring's
fighters and bombers soon gained the upper hand against the
small Dutch air force, the paratroopers ran into fierce opposition
in the Battle for The Hague and the Battle of Rotterdam. On
14 May 1940, responding to a call for assistance from Student,
Albert Kesselring ordered the bombing of Rotterdam city centre.
Fires raged out of control, destroying much of the city.
After the surrender of the Netherlands on 14 May 1940, Luftflotte
2 attempted to move forward to new airfields in Belgium while
still providing support for the fast moving ground troops.
The Battle of France was going well, with General der Panzertruppe
Heinz
Guderian forcing a crossing of the Meuse River at Sedan
on 13 May 1940. To support the breakthrough, Albert Kesselring
transferred Generalleutnant
Wolfram
von Richthofen's VIII. Fliegerkorps to Luftflotte 3. By
24 May, the Allied forces had been cut in two, and the German
Army was only 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) from Dunkirk, the last
channel port remaining in Allied hands. However, that day
Generaloberst
Gerd
von Rundstedt ordered a halt. Albert Kesselring considered
this decision a fatal error. It left the burden of preventing
the Allied evacuation of Dunkirk to Albert Kesselring's fliers,
who were hampered by poor flying weather and staunch opposition
from the British Royal Air Force. For his role in the campaign
in the west, Albert Kesselring was promoted to Generalfeldmarschall
(field marshal) on 19 July 1940.
Following the campaign in France, Albert Kesselring's Luftflotte
2 was committed to the Battle of Britain. Luftflotte 2 was
initially responsible for the bombing of Southeastern England
and the London area but as the battle progressed, command
responsibility shifted, with Generalfeldmarschall Hugo Sperrle's
Luftflotte 3 taking more responsibility for the night-time
Blitz attacks while the main daylight operations fell to Luftflotte
2. Albert Kesselring was involved in the planning of numerous
raids, including the Coventry Blitz of November 1940. Albert
Kesselring's fliers reported numerous victories, but failed
to press home attacks and achieve a decisive victory. Instead,
the Luftwaffe employed the inherent flexibility of air power
to switch targets.
Invasion of the Soviet Union
Although earmarked for operations against the Soviet Union,
Luftflotte 2 remained in the west until May 1941. This was
partly as a deception measure, and partly because new airbases
in Poland could not be completed by the 1 June 1941 target
date, although they were made ready in time for the actual
commencement of Operation Barbarossa on 22 June 1941. Albert
Kesselring established his new headquarters at Bielany, a
suburb of Warsaw.
Luftflotte 2 operated in support of Heeresgruppe Mitte (Army
Group Centre), commanded by Fedor von Bock, continuing the
close working relationship between the two. Albert Kesselring's
mission was to gain air superiority, and if possible air supremacy,
as soon as possible while still supporting ground operations.
For this he had a fleet of over 1,000 aircraft, about a third
of the Luftwaffe's total strength.
The German attack caught large numbers of Soviet Air Force
aircraft on the ground. Faulty tactics - sending unescorted
bombers against the Germans at regular intervals in tactically
unsound formations - accounted for many more. Albert Kesselring
reported that in the first week of operations Luftflotte 2
had accounted for 2,500 Soviet aircraft in the air and on
the ground. Even
Hermann
Göring found these figures hard to believe and ordered
them to be rechecked As the ground troops advanced, the figures
could be directly confirmed and were found to be too low.
Within days, Albert Kesselring was able to fly solo over the
front in his
Focke-Wulf
Fw 189.
With air supremacy attained, Luftflotte 2 turned to support
of ground operations, particularly guarding the flanks of
the armoured spearheads, without which the rapid advance was
not possible. When enemy counterattacks threatened, Albert
Kesselring threw the full weight of his force against them.
Now that the Army was convinced of the value of air support,
units were all too inclined to call for it. Albert Kesselring
now had to convince the Army that air support should be concentrated
at critical points.He strove to improve army - air co-operation
with new tactics and the appointment of Colonel Martin Fiebig
as a special close air support commander. By 26 July, Albert
Kesselring reported the destruction of 165 tanks, 2,136 vehicles
and 194 artillery pieces.
In late 1941, Luftflotte 2 supported the final German offensive
against Moscow, codenamed Operation Typhoon. Raids on Moscow
proved hazardous, as Moscow had good all-weather airfields
and opposition from both fighters and anti-aircraft guns was
similar to that encountered over Britain.The bad weather that
hampered ground operations from October on impeded air operations
even more. Nonetheless, Luftflotte 2 continued to fly critical
reconnaissance, interdiction, close air support and air supply
missions.
Mediterranean and North Africa
In November 1941, Albert Kesselring was appointed Commander-in-Chief
South and was transferred to Italy along with his Luftflotte
2 staff, which for the time being also functioned as his Commander-in-Chief
South staff. Only in January 1943 did he form his headquarters
into a true theatre staff and create a separate staff to control
Luftflotte 2. As a theatre commander, he was answerable directly
to the OKW (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht) and commanded ground,
naval and air forces, but this was of little importance at
first as most German units were under Italian operational
control.
Albert Kesselring strove to organise and protect supply convoys
in order to get the German-Italian panzer army the resources
it needed. He succeeded in establishing local air superiority
and neutralising Malta, which provided a base from which British
aircraft and submarines could menace Axis convoys headed for
North Africa. Without the vital supplies they carried, particularly
fuel, the Axis forces in North Africa could not conduct operations.
Through various expedients, Albert Kesselring managed to deliver
a greatly increased flow of supplies to Generaloberst
Erwin
Rommel's Afrika Korps in Libya. With his forces thus strengthened,
Erwin
Romme prepared an attack on the British positions around
Gazala, while Albert Kesselring planned Operation Herkules,
an airborne and seaborne attack on Malta with the 185 Airborne
Division Folgore and Ramcke Parachute Brigade. Albert Kesselring
hoped to thereby secure the Axis line of communication with
North Africa.
For the Battle of Gazala, Rommel divided his command in two,
taking personal command of the mobile units of the Deutsches
Afrika Korps and Italian XX Motorised Corps, which he led
around the southern flank of Lieutenant-General Neil Ritchie's
British Eighth Army.
Erwin
Romme left the infantry of the Italian X and XXI Corps
under General der Panzertruppe Ludwig Crüwell to hold
the rest of the Eighth Army in place. This command arrangement
went awry on 29 May 1942 when Crüwell was taken prisoner.
Lacking an available commander of sufficient seniority, Albert
Kesselring assumed personal command of Gruppe Crüwell.
Flying his
Fieseler
Fi 156 Storch to a meeting, Albert Kesselring was fired
upon by a British force astride
Erwin
Rommel's line of communications. Albert Kesselring called
in an air strike by every available
Stuka
and Jabo. His attack was successful, the British force suffered
heavy losses and was forced to pull back.
Albert Kesselring and
Erwin
Rommel had a disagreement over the latter's conduct in
the Battle of Bir Hakeim.
Erwin
Rommel's initial infantry assaults had failed to capture
this vital position, the southern pivot of the British Gazala
Line, which was held by the 1st Free French brigade, commanded
by General Marie Pierre Koenig.
Erwin
Rommel had called for air support but had failed to break
the position, which Albert Kesselring attributed to faulty
coordination between the ground and air attacks. Bir Hakeim
was evacuated on 10 June 1942. Albert Kesselring was more
impressed with the results of
Erwin
Rommel's successful assault on Tobruk on 21 June, for
which Albert Kesselring brought in additional aircraft from
Greece and Crete. For his part in the campaign, Albert Kesselring
was awarded the Knight's Cross with oak leaves and swords.
In the wake of the victory at Tobruk,
Erwin
Rommel persuaded
Adolf
Hitler to authorise an attack on Egypt instead of Malta,
over Albert Kesselring's objections.The parachute troops assembled
for Operation Herkules were sent to
Erwin
Rommel. Things went well at first, with
Erwin
Rommel winning the Battle of Mersa Matruh, but just as
Albert Kesselring had warned, the logistical difficulties
mounted and the result was the disastrous First Battle of
El Alamein, Battle of Alam el Halfa and Second Battle of El
Alamein. Albert Kesselring considered
Erwin
Rommel to be a great general leading fast-moving troops
at the corps level of command, but felt that he was too moody
and changeable for higher command. For Albert Kesselring,
Erwin
Rommel's nervous breakdown and hospitalisation for depression
at the end of the African Campaign only confirmed this.
Albert Kesselring was briefly considered as a possible successor
to Generalfeldmarschall
Wilhelm
Keitel as Chief of Staff of the OKW (Oberkommando der
Wehrmacht) in September 1942, with General der Panzertruppe
Friedrich
Paulus replacing Generaloberst
Alfred
Jodl as Chief of the Operations Staff at OKW (Oberkommando
der Wehrmacht). The consideration demonstrated the high regard
in which Albert Kesselring was held by
Adolf
Hitler. Nevertheless,
Adolf
Hitler decided that neither Albert Kesselring nor
Friedrich
Paulus could be spared from their current posts. In October
1942, Albert Kesselring was given direct command of all German
armed forces in the theatre except
Erwin
Rommel's German-Italian Panzer Army in North Africa, including
General der Infantrie Enno von Rintelen, the German liaison
officer at Commando Supremo, who spoke fluent Italian. Albert
Kesselring's command also included the troops in Greece and
the Balkans until the end of the year, when
Adolf
Hitler created an Heeresgruppe headquarters under Generalfeldmarschall
Wilhelm
List, naming him List Oberbefehlshaber Südost.
Tunisia
The Allied invasion of French North Africa precipitated a
crisis in Albert Kesselring's command. He ordered Walther
Nehring, the former commander of the Afrika Korps who was
returning to action after recovering from wounds received
at the Battle of Alam El Halfa, to proceed to Tunisia to take
command of a new corps (XC Corps). Albert Kesselring ordered
Nehring to establish a bridgehead in Tunisia and then to press
west as far as possible so as to gain freedom to manoeuvre.
By December, the Allied commander, General Dwight D. Eisenhower,
was forced to concede that Albert Kesselring had won the race,
the final phase of Operation Torch had failed and the Axis
could only be ejected from Tunisia after a prolonged struggle.
With the initiative back with the Germans and Italians, Albert
Kesselring hoped to launch an offensive that would drive the
Allies out of North Africa. At the Battle of the Kasserine
Pass his forces gave the Allies a beating but in the end strong
Allied resistance and a string of Axis errors stopped the
advance.Albert Kesselring now concentrated on shoring up his
forces by moving the required tonnage of supplies from Sicily
but his efforts were frustrated by Allied aircraft and submarines.
An Allied offensive in April finally broke through, leading
to a collapse of the Axis position in Tunisia. Some 275,000
German and Italian prisoners were taken. Only the Battle of
Stalingrad overshadowed this disaster. In return, Albert Kesselring
had held up the Allies in Tunisia for six months, forcing
a postponement of the Allied invasion of northern France from
the middle of 1943 to the middle of 1944.
Italian Campaign
Sicily
Albert Kesselring expected that the Allies would next invade
Sicily, as a landing could be made there under fighter cover
from Tunisia and Malta.He reinforced the six coastal and four
mobile Italian divisions there with two mobile German divisions,
the 15th Panzergrenadier Division and the Hermann Göring
Panzer Division, both rebuilt after being destroyed in Tunisia.
Albert Kesselring was well aware that while this force was
large enough to stop the Allies from simply marching in, it
could not withstand a large scale invasion. He therefore pinned
his hopes on repelling the Allied invasion of Sicily on an
immediate counterattack, which he ordered Colonel Paul Conrath
of the Hermann Göring Panzer Division to carry out the
moment the objective of the Allied invasion fleet was known,
with or without orders from the island commander, Generale
d'Armata Alfredo Guzzoni.
Albert Kesselring hoped that the Allied invasion fleet would
provide good targets for U-boats, but they had few successes.
U-953
sank two American LSTs and with
U-375
sank three vessels from a British convoy on 4 - 5 July, while
U-371
sank a Liberty ship and a tanker on 10 July. Pressure from
the Allied air forces forced Luftflotte 2, commanded since
June by von Richthofen, to withdraw most of its aircraft to
the mainland.
The Allied invasion of Sicily on 10 July 1943 was stubbornly
opposed. A
Stuka
attacked and sank the USS Maddox, an
Messerschmitt
Bf 109 destroyed an LST, and a Liberty ship filled with
ammunition was bombed by
Ju
88s and caught fire, later exploding without loss of life.
Unaware that Guzzoni had already ordered a major counterattack
on 11 July, Albert Kesselring bypassed the chain of command
to order the Hermann Göring Panzer Division to attack
that day in the hope that a vigorous attack could succeed
before the Americans could bring the bulk of their artillery
and armoured support ashore. Although his troops gave the
Americans quite a battering, they failed to capture the Allied
position.
Albert Kesselring flew to Sicily himself on 12 July to survey
the situation and decided that no more than a delaying action
was possible and that the island would eventually have to
be evacuated. Nonetheless, he intended to fight on and he
reinforced Sicily with the 29th Panzergrenadier Division on
15 July. Albert Kesselring returned to Sicily by flying boat
on 16 July to give the senior German commander, General der
Panzertruppe Hans-Valentin Hube, his instructions. Unable
to provide much more in the way of air support, Albert Kesselring
gave Hube command of the heavy flak units on the island, although
this was contrary to Luftwaffe doctrine. In all, Albert Kesselring
managed to delay the Allies in Sicily for another month and
the Allied conquest of the Sicily was not complete until 17
August.
Albert Kesselring's evacuation of Sicily, which began a week
earlier on 10 August, was perhaps the most brilliant action
of the campaign. In spite of the Allies' superiority on land,
at sea, and in the air, Albert Kesselring was able to evacuate
not only 40,000 men, but also 96,605 vehicles, 94 guns, 47
tanks, 1,100 tons of ammunition, 970 tons of fuel, and 15,000
tons of stores. He was able to achieve near-perfect coordination
between the three services under his command while his opponent,
Eisenhower, could not.
Allied invasion of Italy
With the fall of Sicily, OKW (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht)
feared that Italy would withdraw from the war, but Albert
Kesselring remained confident that the Italians would continue
to fight. OKW (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht) regarded Albert
Kesselring and von Rintelen as too pro-Italian and began to
bypass him, sending
Erwin
Rommel to northern Italy, and Student to Rome, where his
I Parachute Corps was under OKW (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht)
orders to occupy the capital in case of Italian defection.
Benito Mussolini was removed from power on 25 July 1943 and
Erwin
Rommel and OKW (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht) began to plan
for the occupation of Italy and the disarmament of the Italian
Army. Albert Kesselring remained uninformed of these plans
for the time being.
On the advice of
Erwin
Rommel and Generaloberst
Alfred
Jodl,
Adolf
Hitler decided that the Italian Peninsula could not be
held without the assistance of the Italian Army. Albert Kesselring
was ordered to withdraw from southern Italy and consolidate
his Heeresgruppe C (Army Group C) with
Erwin
Rommel's Heeresgruppe B (Army Group B) in Northern Italy,
where
Erwin
Rommel would assume overall command. Albert Kesselring
was slated to be posted to Norway. Albert Kesselring was appalled
at the prospect of abandoning Italy. It would expose southern
Germany to bombers operating from Italy, risk the Allies breaking
into the Po Valley, and was completely unnecessary, as he
was certain that Rome could be held until the summer of 1944.
This assessment was based on his belief that the Allies would
not conduct operations outside the range of their air cover,
which could only reach as far as Salerno. Albert Kesselring
submitted his resignation on 14 August 1943.
SS Obergruppenführer Karl Wolff, the highest SS and police
Führer in Italy, intervened on Albert Kesselring's behalf
with
Adolf
Hitler. Wolff painted
Erwin
Rommel as politically unreliable and argued that Albert
Kesselring's presence in southern Italy was vital to prevent
an early Italian defection. On Wolff's advice,
Adolf
Hitler refused to accept Albert Kesselring's resignation.
Italy withdrew from the war on 8 September. Albert Kesselring
immediately moved to secure Rome, where he expected an Allied
airborne and seaborne invasion. He ordered the 3rd Panzergrenadier
Division and 2nd Parachute Division to close on the city,
while a detachment made an unsuccessful attempt to seize the
Italian Army staff at Monterotondo in a coup de main. Albert
Kesselring's two divisions were faced by five Italian divisions,
two of them armoured, but he managed to overcome the opposition,
disperse the Italian forces and secure the city in two days.
All over Italy, the Germans swiftly disarmed Italian units.
Erwin
Rommel deported Italian soldiers, except for those willing
to serve in German units, to Germany for forced labor, whereas
Italian units in Albert Kesselring's area were initially disbanded
and their men permitted to go home. One Italian commander,
General Gonzaga, refused German demands that his 222nd Coastal
Division disarm, and was promptly shot. A significant part
of the 184 Airborne Division Nembo went over to the German
side, eventually becoming the basis of the 4th Parachute Division.
On the Greek Island of Kefalonia - outside Albert Kesselring's
command - some 5,000 Italian troops of the 33 Mountain Infantry
Division Acqui were massacred. Mussolini was rescued by the
Germans in Operation Oak (Unternehmen Eiche), a raid planned
by Kurt Student and carried out by Obersturmbannführer
Otto
Skorzeny on 12 September. The details of the operation
were deliberately, though unsuccessfully, kept from Albert
Kesselring. Albert Kesselring is too honest for those born
traitors down there was
Adolf
Hitler's assessment.
Italy now effectively became an occupied country, as the Germans
poured in troops. Italy's decision to switch sides created
contempt for the Italians among both the Allies and Germans,
which was to have far-reaching consequences.
Salerno
Although his command was already written off, Albert Kesselring
intended to fight. At the Battle of Salerno in September 1943,
he launched a full-scale counterattack against the Allied
landings there with Generaloberst Heinrich von Vietinghoff's
Tenth Army. The counterattack inflicted heavy casualties on
the Allied forces, forced them back in several areas, and,
for a time, made Allied commanders contemplate evacuation.
The short distance from German airfields allowed Luftflotte
2 to put 120 aircraft over the Salerno area on 11 September
1943. Using
Fritz
X anti-ship missiles, hits were scored on the battleship
HMS Warspite and cruisers HMS Uganda and USS Savannah, while
a Liberty ship was sunk on 14 September and another damaged
the next day. The offensive ultimately failed to throw the
Allies back into the sea because of the intervention of Allied
naval gunfire which decimated the advancing German units,
stubborn Allied resistance and the advance of the British
Eighth Army. On 17 September 1943, Albert Kesselring gave
Vietinghoff permission to break off the attack and withdraw.
Albert Kesselring had been defeated but gained precious time.
Already, in defiance of his orders, he was preparing a series
of successive fallback positions on the Volturno Line, the
Barbara Line and the Bernhardt Line.Only in November 1943,
after a month of hard fighting, did the Allies reach Albert
Kesselring's main position, the Gustav Line. According to
his memoirs, Albert Kesselring felt that much more could have
been accomplished if he had access to the troops held uselessly
under
Erwin
Rommel's command.
In November 1943, Albert Kesselring met with
Adolf
Hitler. Albert Kesselring gave an optimistic assessment
of the situation in Italy and gave reassurances that he could
hold the Allies south of Rome on the Winter Line. Albert Kesselring
further promised that he could prevent the Allies reaching
the Northern Apennines for at least six months. As a result,
on 6 November 1943,
Adolf
Hitler ordered
Erwin
Rommel and his Heeresgruppe B (Army Group B) headquarters
to move to France to take charge of the Atlantic Wall and
prepare for the Allied attack that was expected there in the
Spring of 1944. On 21 November 1943, Albert Kesselring resumed
command of all German forces in Italy, combining Commander-in-Chief
South, a joint command, with that of Heeresgruppe C (Army
Group C), a ground command. I had always blamed Albert Kesselring,
Adolf Hitler
later explained, for looking at things too optimistically
events have proved
Erwin
Rommel wrong, and I have been justified in my decision
to leave Field Marshal Albert Kesselring there, whom I have
seen as an incredible political idealist, but also as a military
optimist, and it is my opinion that military leadership without
optimism is not possible.
The Luftwaffe scored a notable success on the night of 2 December
1943 when 105 Ju 88 bombers struck the port of Bari. Skilfully
using chaff to confuse the Allied radar operators, they found
the port packed with brightly lit Allied shipping. The result
was the most destructive air raid on Allied shipping since
the attack on Pearl Harbour Hits were scored on two ammunition
ships and a tanker. Burning oil and exploding ammunition spread
over the harbour. Some 16 ships were sunk and eight damaged,
and the port was put out of action for three weeks. Moreover,
one of the ships sunk, SS John Harvey, had been carrying mustard
gas, which enveloped the port in a cloud of poisonous vapours.
Cassino and Anzio
The first Allied attempt to break through the Gustav Line
in the Battle of Monte Cassino in January 1944 met with early
success, with the British X Corps breaking through the line
held by the 94th Infantry Division and imperilling the entire
Tenth Army front. At the same time, Albert Kesselring was
receiving warnings of an imminent Allied amphibious attack.
Albert Kesselring rushed his reserves, the 29th and 90th Panzergrenadier
Divisions, to the Cassino front. They were able to stabilise
the German position there but left Rome poorly guarded. Albert
Kesselring felt that he had been out generalled when the Allies
landed at Anzio.
Although taken by surprise, Albert Kesselring moved rapidly
to regain control of the situation, summoning Generaloberst
Eberhard von Mackensen's Fourteenth Army headquarters from
northern Italy, the 29th and 90th Panzergrenadier Divisions
from the Cassino front, and the 26th Panzer Division from
Tenth Army. OKW (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht) chipped in some
divisions from other theatres. By February, Albert Kesselring
was able to take the offensive at Anzio but his forces were
unable to crush the Allied beachhead, for which Albert Kesselring
blamed himself, OKW (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht) and von Mackensen
for avoidable errors.
Meanwhile, costly fighting at Monte Cassino in February 1944
brought the Allies close to a breakthrough into the Liri Valley.To
hold the bastion of Monte Cassino, Albert Kesselring brought
in the 1st Parachute Division, an exceptionally well trained
and conditioned formation, on 26 February. Despite heavy casualties
and the expenditure of enormous quantities of ammunition,
an Allied offensive in March 1944 failed to break the Gustav
Line position.
On 11 May 1944 General Sir Harold Alexander launched Operation
Diadem, which finally broke through the Gustav Line and forced
the Tenth Army to withdraw. In the process, a gap opened up
between the Tenth and Fourteenth Armies, threatening both
with encirclement For this failure, Albert Kesselring relieved
von Mackensen of his command, replacing him with General der
Panzertruppe
Joachim
Lemelsen. Fortunately for the Germans, Lieutenant General
Mark Clark, obsessed with the capture of Rome, failed to take
advantage of the situation and the Tenth Army was able to
withdraw to the next line of defence, the Trasimene Line,
where it was able to link up with the Fourteenth Army and
then conduct a fighting withdrawal.
For his part in the campaign, Albert Kesselring was awarded
the Knight's Cross with oak leaves, swords and diamonds by
Adolf Hitler
at the Wolfsschanze near Rastenburg, East Prussia on 19 July
1944. The next day,
Adolf
Hitler was the target of the 20 July plot. Informed of
this event that evening by
Hermann
Göring, Albert Kesselring, like many other senior
commanders, sent a telegram to
Adolf
Hitler reaffirming his loyalty.
Throughout July and August 1944, Albert Kesselring fought
a stubborn delaying action, gradually retreating to the formidable
Gothic Line north of Florence. There, he was finally able
to halt the Allied advance.Casualties of the Gothic Line battles
in September and October 1944 included Albert Kesselring himself.
On 25 October 1944, his car collided with an artillery piece
coming out of a side road. Albert Kesselring suffered serious
head and facial injuries and did not return to his command
until January 1945.
Measures for the protection of Italy's population and culture
Albert Kesselring strove tirelessly to avoid the physical
destruction of many artistically important Italian cities,
including Rome, Florence, Siena and Orvieto. In some cases,
historic bridges - such as the Ponte Vecchio (literally Old
Bridge) - were booby trapped rather than blown up. However,
other historic Florentine bridges were destroyed on his orders
and, in addition to booby-trapping the old bridge, he ordered
the demolition of the ancient historical central borough at
its two ends, in order to delay the Allied advance across
the Arno river.In the same vein, Albert Kesselring supported
the Italian declaration of Rome, Florence and Chieti as open
cities. In the case of Rome, this was in spite of there being
considerable tactical advantages to be had from defending
the Tiber bridges. These declarations were never agreed to
by the Allies as the cities were not demilitarised and remained
centres of government and industry. Despite the repeated declarations
of open city, Rome was bombed more than fifty times by the
Allies, whose air forces hit Florence as well. In practice,
the open city status was rendered meaningless.
Albert Kesselring tried to preserve the monastery of Monte
Cassino by avoiding its military occupation even though it
offered a superb observing point over the battlefield. Ultimately
this was unsuccessful, as the Allies never believed the monastery
would not be used to direct the German artillery against their
lines. On the morning of 15 February 1944, 142 B-17 Flying
Fortress, 47 B-25 Mitchell and 40 B-26 Marauder medium bombers
deliberately dropped 1,150 tons of high explosives and incendiary
bombs on the abbey, reducing the historic monastery to a smoking
mass of rubble. Albert Kesselring was aware that some artworks
taken from Monte Cassino for safekeeping wound up in the possession
of
Hermann
Göring. Albert Kesselring had some German soldiers
shot for looting.German authorities avoided giving the Italian
authorities control over artworks because they feared that
entire collections would be sold to Switzerland. A 1945 Allied
investigation reported that Italian cultural treasures had
suffered relatively little war damage. Albert Kesselring received
regular updates on efforts to preserve cultural treasures
and his personal interest in the matter contributed to the
high proportion of art treasures that were saved.
War crimes
On 22-23 March 1944, a 15-man American Office of Strategic
Services (OSS) Operational Group landed in inflatable boats
from US Navy PT boats on the Ligurian coast as part of Operation
Ginny II, a mission to blow up the entrances of two vital
railway tunnels. Their boats were discovered and they were
captured by a smaller group of Italian and German soldiers.
On 26 March, they were executed under
Adolf
Hitler's Commando Order, issued after German soldiers
had been shackled during the Dieppe Raid. General Anton Dostler,
who had signed the execution order, was tried after the war,
found guilty, and executed by firing squad on 1 December 1945.
In Rome on 23 March 1944, 33 policemen of the Polizeiregiment
Bozen from the German-speaking population of the Italian province
of South Tyrol and three Italian civilians were killed by
a bomb blast and the subsequent shooting. In response,
Adolf
Hitler approved the recommendation of Generaloberst Eberhard
von Mackensen, the commander of the Fourteenth Army who was
responsible for the sector including Rome, that 10 Italians
should be shot for each policeman killed. The task fell to
SS Obersturmbannführer Herbert Kappler who, finding there
were not enough condemned prisoners available, made up the
numbers as he thought best, using Jewish prisoners and even
civilians taken from the streets. The result was the Ardeatine
massacre.
The fall of Rome on 4 June 1944 placed Albert Kesselring in
a dangerous situation as his forces attempted to withdraw
from Rome to the Gothic Line. That the Germans were especially
vulnerable to Italian partisans was not lost on General Alexander,
who appealed in a radio broadcast for Italians to kill Germans
wherever you encounter them. Albert Kesselring responded by
authorising the massive employment of artillery, grenade and
mine throwers, armoured cars, flamethrowers and other technical
combat equipment against the partisans. He also issued an
order promising indemnity to soldiers who exceed our normal
restraint.Whether or not as a result of Albert Kesselring's
hard line, massacres were carried out by the Hermann Göring
Panzer Division at Stia in April, Civitella in Val di Chiana
in June and Bucine in July 1944, by the 26th Panzer Division
at Padule DI Fucecchio on 23 August 1944, and by the 16th
SS Panzergrenadier Division Reichsführer-SS at Sant'Anna
DI Stazzema in August 1944 and Marzabotto in September and
October 1944.
In August 1944 Albert Kesselring was informed by Rudolf Rahn,
the German ambassador to the RSI, that Mussolini had filed
protests about the killing of Italian citizens. In response,
Albert Kesselring issued another edict to his troops on 21
August, deploring incidents that had damaged the German Wehrmacht's
reputation and discipline and which no longer have anything
to do with reprisal operations and launched investigations
into specific cases that Mussolini cited. Between 21 July
and 25 September 1944, 624 Germans were killed, 993 wounded
and 872 missing in partisan operations, while some 9,520 partisans
were killed.
Albert Kesselring used the Jews of Rome as slave labour on
the construction of fortifications as he had earlier done
with those of Tunis. Albert Kesselring needed a large labour
force, given the magnitude of the logistical challenges he
was facing. When ordered to deport the Roman Jews, Albert
Kesselring resisted. Albert Kesselring announced that no resources
were available to carry out such an order.
Adolf
Hitler then transferred responsibility to the SS and around
8,000 Roman Jews were ultimately deported. During the German
occupation of Italy, the Germans were believed to have killed
some 46,000 Italian civilians, including 7,000 Jews.
Central Europe
Once recovered from the car accident, Albert Kesselring relieved
Generalfeldmarschall
Gerd
von Rundstedt as OB West on 10 March 1945. On arrival,
he told his new staff, Well, gentlemen, I am the new V-3,
referring to the Vergeltungswaffe (vengeance weapons) and,
in particular, to the V-3 cannon, prototypes of which were
fired on the Western Front in late 1944 and early 1945. Given
the desperate situation of the Western Front, this was another
sign of Albert Kesselring's proverbial optimism. Albert Kesselring
still described as lucid
Adolf
Hitler's analysis of the situation, according to which
the Germans were about to inflict a historical defeat upon
the Soviets, after which the victorious German armies would
be brought west to crush the Allies and sweep them from the
continent. Therefore, Albert Kesselring was determined to
hang on in the west until the decision in the East came. Albert
Kesselring endorsed
Adolf
Hitler's order that deserters should be hanged from the
nearest tree. When a staff officer sought to make Albert Kesselring
aware of the hopelessness of the situation, Albert Kesselring
told him that he had driven through the entire army rear area
and not seen a single hanged man.
The Western Front at this time generally followed the Rhine
river with two important exceptions, the American bridgehead
over the Rhine at Remagen, and a large German salient west
of the Rhine, the Saar - Palatinate triangle. Consideration
was given to evacuating the triangle, but OKW (Oberkommando
der Wehrmacht) ordered it held. When Albert Kesselring paid
his first visit to the German First and Seventh Army headquarters
there on 13 March 1945, the Heeresgruppe commander, Oberstgruppenführer
Paul Hausser, and the two army commanders all affirmed the
defence of the triangle could only result in heavy losses
or complete annihilation of their commands. General der Infanterie
Hans Felber of the Seventh Army considered the latter the
most likely outcome. Nonetheless, Albert Kesselring insisted
that the positions had to be held.
The triangle was already under attack from two sides by Lieutenant
General George Patton's Third Army and Lieutenant General
Alexander Patch's Seventh Army. The German position soon crumbled
and
Adolf Hitler
reluctantly sanctioned a withdrawal.The First and Seventh
Armies suffered heavy losses, around 113,000 Germans casualties
at the cost of 17,000 on the Allied side. Nonetheless, they
had avoided encirclement and managed to conduct a skilful
delaying action, evacuating the last troops to the east bank
of the Rhine on 25 March 1945.
As Germany was cut in two, Albert Kesselring's command was
enlarged to include Heeresgruppe Mitte (Army Group Centre),
Heeresgruppe Süd and Heeresgruppe Südost on the
Eastern Front, and all Heeresgruppe C (Army Group C) in Italy,
as well as his own Heeresgruppe G (Army Group G) and Heeresgruppe
Oberrhein. On 30 April,
Adolf
Hitler committed suicide in Berlin. On 1 May,
Karl
Dönitz was designated German President (Reichspräsident)
and the Flensburg government was created. One of the new president's
first acts was the appointment of Albert Kesselring as Commander-in-Chief
of Southern Germany, with plenipotentiary powers.
Chaotic surrender
Meanwhile, Wolff and von Vietinghoff, now commander of Heeresgruppe
C (Army Group C), had almost concluded a preliminary surrender
agreement with the OSS chief in Switzerland, Allen Dulles.
Known as Operation Sunrise, these secret negotiations had
been in progress since early March 1945. Albert Kesselring
was aware of them, having previously consented to them, although
he had not informed his own staff. He did, however, later
inform
Adolf
Hitler.
At first he did not accept the agreement and, on 30 April,
relieved both Vietinghoff and his Chief of Staff, Generalleutnant
Hans Röttiger, putting them at the disposition of the
OKW (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht) for a possible court martial.
They were replaced by General Friedrich Schulz and Generalmajor
Friedrich Wenzel respectively. The next morning, 1 May, Röttinger
reacted by placing both Schulz and Wenzel under arrest, and
summoning General
Joachim
Lemelsen to take Schulz's place.
Joachim
Lemelsen initially refused, as he was in possession of
a written order from Albert Kesselring which prohibited any
talks with the enemy without his explicit authorisation By
this time, Vietinghoff and Wolff had concluded an armistice
with the Allied Commander in Chief of the Mediterranean Theatre,
Field Marshal Alexander, which became effective on 2 May at
14:00.
Joachim
Lemelsen reached Bolzano, and Schulz and Wenzel regained
control, this time agreeing with the officers pushing for
a quick surrender. The German armies in Italy were now utterly
defeated by the Allies, who were rapidly advancing from Garmisch
towards Innsbruck. Albert Kesselring remained stubbornly opposed
to the surrender, but was finally won over by Wolff on the
late morning of 2 May after a two-hour phone call to Albert
Kesselring at his headquarters at Pullach.
North of the Alps, Heeresgruppe G (Army Group G) followed
suit on 6 May. Albert Kesselring now decided to surrender
his own headquarters. He ordered SS Oberstgruppenführer
Paul Hausser to supervise the SS troops to ensure that the
surrender was carried out in accordance with his instructions.
Albert Kesselring then surrendered to an American major at
Saalfelden, near Salzburg, in Austria on 9 May 1945. He was
taken to see Major General Maxwell D. Taylor, the commander
of the 101st Airborne Division, who treated him courteously,
allowing him to keep his weapons and field marshal's baton,
and to visit the Eastern Front headquarters of Army Groups
Centre and South at Zeltweg and Graz unescorted. Taylor arranged
for Albert Kesselring and his staff to move into a hotel at
Berchtesgaden.Photographs of Taylor and Albert Kesselring
drinking tea together created a stir in the United States.Albert
Kesselring met with Lieutenant General Jacob L. Devers, commander
of the Sixth United States Army Group, and gave interviews
to Allied newspaper reporters.
With the end of the war, Albert Kesselring was hoping to be
able to make a start on the rehabilitation of Germany. Instead,
he found himself placed under arrest. On 15 May 1945, Albert
Kesselring was taken to Mondorf-les-Bains where his baton
and decorations were taken from him and he was incarcerated.
He was held in a number of American POW camps before being
transferred to British custody in 1946. He testified at the
Nuremberg trial of
Hermann
Göring, but his offers to testify against Soviet,
American, and British commanders were declined.
Post-war
Trial
By the end of the war, for many Italians the name of Albert
Kesselring, whose signature appeared on posters and printed
orders announcing draconian measures adopted by the German
occupation, had become synonymous with the oppression and
terror that had characterised the German occupation. Albert
Kesselring's name headed the list of German officers blamed
for a long series of atrocities perpetrated by the German
forces.
The Moscow Declaration of October 1943 promised that those
German officers and men and members of the National Socialist
Party who have been responsible for or have taken a consenting
part in the above atrocities, massacres and executions will
be sent back to the countries in which their abominable deeds
were done in order that they may be judged and punished according
to the laws of these liberated countries and of free governments
which will be erected therein. However, the British, who had
been a driving force in moulding the war crimes trial policy
that culminated in the Nuremberg Trials, explicitly excluded
high-ranking German officers in their custody. Thus, Albert
Kesselring's conviction became a legal prerequisite if perpetrators
of war crimes were to be found guilty by Italian courts.
The British held two major trials against the top German war
criminals who had perpetrated crimes during the Italian campaign.
For political reasons it was decided to hold the trials in
Italy, but a request by Italy to allow an Italian judge to
participate was denied on the grounds that Italy was not an
Allied country. The trials were held under the Royal Warrant
of 18 June 1945, thus essentially under British Common Military
Law. The decision put the trials on a shaky legal basis, as
foreign nationals were being tried for crimes against foreigners
in a foreign country. The first trial, held in Rome, was of
von Mackensen and Generalleutnant Kurt Mälzer, the Commandant
of Rome, for their part in the Ardeatine massacre. Both were
sentenced to death on 30 November 1946.
Albert Kesselring's own trial began in Venice on 17 February
1947. The British Military Court was presided over by Major
General Sir Edmund Hakewill-Smith, assisted by four lieutenant
colonels. Colonel Richard C. Halse - who had already obtained
the death penalty for von Mackensen and Mältzer - was
the prosecutor. Albert Kesselring's legal team was headed
by Hans Laternser, a skilful German lawyer who specialised
in Anglo-Saxon law, had represented several defendants at
the Nuremberg Trials, and would later go on to represent Generalfeldmarschall
Erich von Manstein. Albert Kesselring's ability to pay his
legal team was hampered because his assets had been frozen
by the Allies, but his legal costs were eventually met by
friends in South America and relatives in Franconia.
Albert Kesselring was arraigned on two charges: the shooting
of 335 Italians in the Ardeatine massacre and incitement to
kill Italian civilians. Albert Kesselring did not invoke the
Nuremberg defence. Rather, he maintained that his actions
were lawful. On 6 May 1947 the Court found him guilty of both
charges and sentenced him to death by firing squad, which
was considered more honourable than hanging. The court left
open the question of the legality of killing innocent persons
in reprisals.
The planned major trial for the campaign of reprisals never
took place, but a series of smaller trials was held instead
in Padua between April and June 1947 for SS Brigadeführer
Willy Tensfeld, Kapitänleutnant Waldemar Krummhaar, the
26th Panzer Division's Generalleutnant Eduard Crasemann and
SS Gruppenführer Max Simon of the 16th SS Panzergrenadier
Division Reichsführer-SS. Tensfeld was acquitted, Crasemann
was sentenced to 10 years, and Simon was sentenced to death,
but his sentence was commuted. Simons's trial was the last
held in Italy by the British. By 1949, British military tribunals
had sentenced 230 Germans to death and another 447 to custodial
sentences. None of the death sentences imposed between the
end of 1946 and 1948 were carried out. A number of officers,
all below the rank of General, including Herbert Kappler,
were transferred to the Italian courts for trial. These applied
very different legal standards to the British ones which were
often more favourable to the defendants. Ironically, in view
of the repeated attempts by many senior Wehrmacht commanders
to shift blame for atrocities onto the SS, the most senior
SS commanders in Italy, Karl Wolff and Himmler's personal
representative in Italy, SS Standartenführer Eugen Dollmann,
escaped prosecution.
Commutation, pardon and liberation
The death verdict against Albert Kesselring unleashed a storm
of protest in the United Kingdom. Former British Prime Minister
Winston Churchill immediately branded it as too harsh and
intervened in favour of Albert Kesselring. Field Marshal Alexander,
now Governor General of Canada, sent a telegram to Prime Minister
Clement Attlee in which he expressed his hope that Albert
Kesselring's sentence would be commuted. As his old opponent
on the battlefield, he started, I have no complaints against
him. Albert Kesselring and his soldiers fought against us
hard but clean. Alexander had expressed his admiration for
Albert Kesselring as a military commander as early as 1943.
In his 1961 memoirs Alexander paid tribute to Albert Kesselring
as a commander who showed great skill in extricating himself
from the desperate situations into which his faulty intelligence
had led him. Alexander's sentiments were echoed by Lieutenant
General Sir Oliver Leese, who had commanded the British Eighth
Army in the Italian campaign. In a May 1947 interview, Leese
said he was very sad to hear of what he considered British
victor's justice being imposed on Albert Kesselring, an extremely
gallant soldier who had fought his battles fairly and squarely.
Lord de L'Isle, who had been awarded the Victoria Cross for
gallantry at Anzio, raised the issue in the House of Lords.
The Italian government flatly refused to carry out death sentences,
as the death penalty had been abolished in Italy in 1944 and
was regarded as a relic of Mussolini's Fascist regime. The
Italian decision was very disappointing to the British government
because the trials had partly been intended to meet the expectations
of the Italian public. The War Office notified Lieutenant
General Sir John Harding, who had succeeded Alexander as commander
of British forces in the Mediterranean in 1946, that there
should be no more death sentences and those already imposed
should be commuted. Accordingly, Harding commuted the death
sentences imposed on von Mackensen, Mältzer and Albert
Kesselring to life imprisonment on 4 July 1947. Mältzer
died while still in prison in February 1952, while von Mackensen,
after having his sentence reduced to 21 years, was eventually
freed in October 1952. Albert Kesselring was moved from Mestre
prison near Venice to Wolfsberg, Carinthia, in May 1947. In
October 1947 he was transferred for the last time, to Werl
prison, in Westphalia.
In Wolfsberg, Albert Kesselring was approached by a former
SS major who had an escape plan prepared. Albert Kesselring
declined the offer on the grounds that he felt it would be
seen as a confession of guilt. Other senior Nazi figures did
manage to escape from Wolfsberg to South America or Syria.
Albert Kesselring resumed his work on a history of the war
that he was writing for the US Army's Historical Division.
This effort, working under the direction of Generaloberst
Franz Halder in 1946, brought together a number of German
generals for the purpose of producing historical studies of
the war, including Gotthard Heinrici,
Heinz
Guderian, Lothar Rendulic, Hasso von Manteuffel and Georg
von Küchler. Albert Kesselring contributed studies of
the war in Italy and North Africa and the problems faced by
the German high command. Albert Kesselring also worked secretly
on his memoirs. The manuscript was smuggled out by Irmgard
Horn-Kesselring, Rainer's mother, who typed it up at her home.
An influential group assembled in Britain to lobby for his
release from prison. Headed by Lord Hankey, the group included
politicians Lord de L'Isle and Richard Stokes, Field Marshal
Alexander and Admiral of the Fleet The Earl of Cork and Orrery,
and military historians Basil Liddell Hart and J. F. C. Fuller.
Upon re-gaining the prime ministership in 1951, Winston Churchill,
who was closely associated with the group, gave priority to
the quick release of the war criminals remaining in British
custody.
Meanwhile, in Germany, the release of military prisoners had
become a political issue. With the establishment of West Germany
in 1949, and the advent of the Cold War between the former
Allies and the Soviet Union, it became inevitable that the
Wehrmacht would be revived in some form, and there were calls
for amnesty for military prisoners as a precondition for German
military participation in the Western Alliance. A media campaign
gradually gathered steam in Germany. Westdeutsche Allgemeine
Zeitung published an interview with Liny Albert Kesselring
and Stern ran a series about Albert Kesselring and von Manstein
entitled Justice, Not Clemency. The pressure on the British
government was increased in 1952, when the German Chancellor
Konrad Adenauer made it clear that West German ratification
of the European Defence Community Treaty was dependent on
the release of German military figures.
In July 1952, Albert Kesselring was diagnosed with a cancerous
growth in the throat. During World War I, he had frequently
smoked up to twenty cigars per day but he quit smoking in
1925. Although the British were suspicious of the diagnosis,
they were concerned that he might die in prison like Mältzer,
which would be a public relations disaster. Albert Kesselring
was transferred to a hospital, under guard. In October 1952,
Albert Kesselring was released from his prison sentence on
the grounds of ill-health.
Later life
In 1952, while still in the hospital, Albert Kesselring accepted
the honorary presidency of three veterans' organisations.
The first was the Luftwaffenring, consisting of Luftwaffe
veterans. The Verband deutsches Afrikakorps, the veterans'
association of the Afrika Korps, soon followed. More controversial
was the presidency of the right-wing veterans' association,
the Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten. Leadership of this
organisation tarnished his reputation. He attempted to reform
the organisation, proposing that the new German flag be flown
instead of the old Imperial Flag, that the old Stahlhelm greeting
Front heil! be abolished, and that members of the Social Democratic
Party of Germany be allowed to join. The response was very
unenthusiastic.
Albert Kesselring's memoirs were published in 1953, as Soldat
bis zum letzten Tag (A Soldier to the Last Day). They were
reprinted in English as A Soldier's Record a year later. Although
written while he was in prison, without access to his papers,
the memoirs formed a valuable resource, informing military
historians on topics such as the background to the invasion
of the Soviet Union. When the English edition was published,
Albert Kesselring's contentions that the Luftwaffe was not
defeated in the air in the Battle of Britain and that Operation
Sea Lion - the invasion of Britain - was thought about but
never seriously planned were controversial. In 1955, he published
a second book, Gedanken zum Zweiten Weltkrieg (Thoughts on
the Second World War).
Interviewed by the Italian journalist Enzo Biagi soon after
his release in 1952, Albert Kesselring defiantly described
the Marzabotto massacre - in which almost 800 innocent Italian
civilians had been killed - as a normal military operation.
Since the event was considered to be the worst massacre of
civilians committed in Italy during World War II, Albert Kesselring's
definition caused outcry and indignation in the Italian Parliament.
Albert Kesselring reacted by raising the provocation and affirming
that he had saved Italy and that the Italians ought to build
him a monument. In response, on 4 December 1952, Piero Calamandrei,
an Italian jurist, soldier, university professor, and politician,
who had been a leader of the Resistance, penned an antifascist
poem, Lapide ad ignominia (A Monument to Ignominy). In the
poem, Calamandrei stated that if Albert Kesselring returned
he would indeed find a monument, but one stronger than stone,
composed of Italian Resistance fighters who willingly took
up arms, to preserve dignity, not to promote hate, and who
decided to fight back against the shame and terror of the
world. Calamandrei's poem appears in monuments in the towns
of Cuneo and Montepulciano.
After release from prison, Albert Kesselring protested against
what he regarded as the unjustly smirched reputation of the
German soldier. In November 1953, testifying at a war crimes
trial, he warned that there won't be any volunteers for the
new German army if the German government continues to try
German soldiers for acts committed in World War II. He enthusiastically
supported the European Defence Community and suggested that
the war opponents of yesterday must become the peace comrades
and friends of tomorrow. On the other hand, he also declared
that he found astonishing those who believe that we must revise
our ideas in accordance with democratic principles ... That
is more than I can take.
In March 1954, Albert Kesselring and Liny toured Austria ostensibly
as private citizens. He met with former comrades-in-arms and
prison-mates, some of them former SS members, causing embarrassment
to the Austrian government, which ordered his deportation.
He ignored the order and completed his tour before leaving
a week later, as per his original plan. His only official
service was on the Medals Commission, which was established
by President Theodor Heuss. Ultimately, the commission unanimously
recommended that medals should be permitted to be worn - but
without the swastika. He was an expert witness for the Generals'
Trials. The Generals' Trials were trials of German citizens
before German courts for crimes committed in Germany, the
most prominent of which was that of Generalfeldmarschall Ferdinand
Schörner.
Albert Kesselring died at Bad Nauheim, West Germany, on 16
July 1960 at the age of 74. He was given a quasi-military
Stahlhelm funeral and buried in Bergfriedhof Cemetery in Bad
Wiessee. Members of Stahlhelm acted as his pall bearers and
fired a rifle volley over his grave. His former chief of staff,
Siegfried Westphal, spoke for the veterans of North Africa
and Italy, describing Albert Kesselring as a man of admirable
strength of character whose care was for soldiers of all ranks.
General
Josef
Kammhuber spoke on behalf of the Luftwaffe and Bundeswehr,
expressing the hope that Albert Kesselring would be remembered
for his earlier accomplishments rather than for his later
activities. Also present were the former SS Oberstgruppenführer
Sepp Dietrich, the ex-Chancellor
Franz
von Papen, Generalfeldmarschall Ferdinand Schörner,
Grossadmiral and former Reichspräsident
Karl
Dönitz, Otto Remer, SS Standartenführer Joachim
Peiper, and former Ambassador Rudolf Rahn.
In 2000, a memorial event was held in Bad Wiessee marking
the fortieth anniversary of Albert Kesselring's death. No
representatives of the Bundeswehr attended, on the grounds
that Albert Kesselring was not worthy of being part of our
tradition. Instead, the task of remembering the Generalfeldmarschall
fell to two veterans groups, the Deutsche Montecassino Vereinigung
(German Monte Cassino Association) and the Bund Deutscher
Fallschirmjäger (Association of German Paratroopers).
To his ageing troops, Albert Kesselring remained a commander
to be commemorated.
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