Albert Kesselring (1885-1960) was one of the most prominent German field marshals of World War II. A veteran of World War I, an important player in Germany’s secret rearmament, a brilliant defensive commander, and a war criminal defended by some of his former enemies. And, perhaps most unusually, an officer who commanded large formations both in the Heer, the German army, and the Luftwaffe, the air force.
 
Early career
Born to a schoolmaster and town councilor, Kesselring decided on a military career at a young age and joined the Royal Bavarian Army as an artillery officer cadet in 1904. He studied at the School of Artillery and Engineering and was promoted to lieutenant in 1910. He became interested in aviation and trained as a balloon observer in 1912. He served on both the Western and Eastern Front in World War I, earning the notice of his commanders and becoming a staff officer.

The Treaty of Versailles forced Germany to dismantle most of its military, and Kesselring took part in the demobilization process. He got in a dispute with a local right-wing paramilitary leader and was briefly jailed on charges of organizing a coup against his military command, but was quickly released. He remained in the military of the Weimar Republic and took part in the preparations for a secret rearmament, including training maneuvers held in the then-friendly Soviet Union.
 
An office job
Hitler became Chancellor, and soon after that Führer, of Germany in 1933 (Becoming Führer), and began rearmament in earnest. Kesselring was discharged from the army at the rank of lieutenant colonel against his wishes, but was quickly given another suitable job at the Reich Commissariat for Aviation, which became the Air Ministry two months later. His job was to prepare the founding of the Luftwaffe in defiance of the Treaty of Versailles, build secret factories and make alliances with industrialists and aviation engineers.

Advancement in the rapidly expanding military was quick, and Kesselring was promoted to major general in 1936. The Luftwaffe became the most “nazified” branch of the German military, but Kesselring himself was never actually a party member – even though he (like other generals) did receive personal monthly payments from Hitler as a bribe for loyalty.
 
He learned to fly at the age of 48 and became qualified on several types of single- and multi-engine planes. He did this because he believed an officer should not ask his subordinates to do anything he himself could not. He kept flying three to four times a week until very late in World War II, and was shot down or forced to land five times because of his habit of taking to the air and observing an aerial engagement personally.

Luftflotte 1 remained in occupied Poland, but Kesselring was moved to a new command in the west after the Mechelen Incident (Losing Secret War Plans), in which a German plane carrying partial plans of the invasion of the Low Countries and France landed in Belgium by mistake. The commander of Luftflotte 2 was relieved in the aftermath of the fiasco, and Kesselring was sent to replace him, giving him a chance to participate in the Third Reich’s westward invasion.
 
Luftflotte 2 performed well in Belgium and the Netherlands, and paratroopers managed to capture the strategically important Belgian fort of Eben-Emael after landing on it. They did, however, run into fierce opposition in the operations to capture Rotterdam and the Hague, with some 4,000 casualties. Kesselring also had his air fleet bomb Rotterdam’s city center, rendering 78,000 civilians homeless.
                                                                
Kesselring’s success was undermined by his own superior, Luftwaffe-chief Hermann Göring. Göring promised Hitler, that his air force will be able to destroy the British and French troops cut off near Dunkirk, without help from ground forces. Kesselring knew this was blatantly untrue, but his protests were disregarded. The operation moved forward and failed, allowing 338,000 Allied soldiers to escape. (The “Miracle of Dunkirk”) Kesselring’s air fleet continued to fly in support of the conquest of France, and he was promoted to Field Marshal for his role.

The Battle of Britain
Luftflotte 2 was next committed to the Battle of Britain, the intended first step to the invasion of the United Kingdom. (The Sea Lion that Sank) Kesselring was skeptical and advocated attacking Gibraltar instead in an attempt to force Britain to negotiate. His suggestion was swept aside, and his air fleet was initially tasked with bombing Southeast England and London, with Göring’s overall goal being the suppression of the Royal Air Force (RAF) by bombing its airstrips and forcing its interceptors into air combat.
 
One of the main problems on the German side was the lack of cooperation between the 2nd and 3rd Air Fleets, and therefore the lack of an overall plan. Kesselring also failed to understand the complexity and effectiveness of the British air defense system (The Dowding System), still believing even after the war that the RAF could have been defeated simply through dogfights.

In September 1940, Göring became convinced that RAF Fighter Command was exhausted, and so he shifted attacks away from airstrips and towards London. This was a mistake, as the RAF was stronger than the Germans believed, and the reprieve gave it time to regain its strength. Germany eventually lost the Battle of Britain, but Luftflotte 2 continued to fly on raids against English cities. The pressure on Britain was kept up to conceal the German buildup for Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.
 
The Soviet Front
When the invasion began, Kesselring’s air fleet supported Army Group Center. Much of the Soviet Air Force was caught on the ground; much of what managed to take off was massacred due to poor Soviet aerial tactics early in the war. Soviet bombers were often sent against German troops unescorted, flying in hard-to-defend formations and attacking at regular, predictable intervals, making their interception easy. Kesselring reported 2,500 enemy aircraft destroyed in the first week. Göring thought the number was unrealistically high, but when advancing German ground troops made an actual count of the wrecks, it turned out the real number was even higher. Once Kesselring achieved air supremacy, he supported ground troops by hitting Soviet counterattacks – his support became so valued that he became swamped with requests and had to convince the army to only call for air support in critical battles.

With German forces pushing for Moscow by late 1941, German command became overconfident and pulled Luftflotte 2 from the area, sending it to the Mediterranean to support the troubled war effort there. The disappearance of Kesselring’s air fleet gave Soviet forces a reprieve and contributed to the eventual German failure to capture Moscow.
 
The Mediterranean
Despite commanding a Luftwaffe unit up to that point, Kesselring was appointed Command-in-Chief South, the theater commander in charge of all German ground, naval and air forces in the Mediterranean. This put him in a convoluted chain of command: he reported to Hitler on strategic matters, to Göring on matters of the Luftwaffe, and, since the North African campaign was started by the Italians, to Mussolini on operational matters.
 
Kesselring recognized that the greatest problem was the British-held island of Malta (The Siege of Malta), from where British planes and submarines could strike at Axis convoys supplying the troops in North Africa. His bombing campaign against the island managed to rapidly suppress the British interception of shipping. He supported an amphibious invasion of Malta to capture it for good, but the plan fell through as too many Axis units have become bogged down in North Africa, leaving not enough for the operation.

Shortly before the Battle of Gazala, a successful Axis offensive in the Western Desert, Rommel (The Accomplishment and Legacy of the Desert Fox) lost one of his senior commanders when the general’s pilot mistook British forces for Axis ones, landed in their midst, and got promptly captured. Rommel had no suitable replacement, so Kesselring stepped in and took the position despite having higher seniority than Rommel. This was the first time he held a senior ground command, but he acquitted himself well when he pushed a convoy through British minefields to send Rommel some badly needed supplies.