Albert Kesselring 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. The first part of our article (Kesselring – Part I ) described his career in World War I and the early years of World War II, ending with the Allied pushing Axis forces out of North Africa. This second part details Kesselring’s defense of Sicily and mainland Italy, and his post-war life.

Sicily
Kesselring deduced that the Allies’ next target would be either Sicily, Corsica or Sardinia, since troops landing on these islands would enjoy air cover taking off from Malta and Tunisia. He also realized that Sicily was the most likely target and set about preparing it for battle.

Kesselring had an optimistic general disposition, and he grew to trust Italian forces based on his experience in North Africa, a trust German High Command did not share. On the other hand, he realized that once the Allied attack reached Sicily, the only chance for victory would be to stop them on the beaches and throw them back into the sea with a rapid counterattack. In order to help him better concentrate on the “big picture,” direct command of his Luftflotte (“air fleet”) 2 was passed to Wolfram von Richthofen, the fourth cousin of Manfred von Richthofen, the famed Red Baron of World War I.

Defending Italy
Operation Husky, the Allied landings in Sicily, went far worse for the Axis than Kesselring hoped. The two German divisions on the island put up a spirited fight, but Italian units crumbled, allowing the Allies to establish a foothold. Kesselring decided to give up Western Sicily and concentrate on slowing down the Allied advance towards the port of Messina in the northeast. He managed to drag the campaign out for more than a month, but Sicily was eventually and inevitably lost as the “race” between Patton and Montgomery (The Rivalry Between Montgomery and Patton) ended with the capture of the port city. Kesselring still performed one final impressive feat in Sicily by withdrawing 40,000 men, close to 10,000 vehicles and significant supplies to Italy before they could be surrounded and captured; he achieved this through the perfect cooperation of ground, naval and air forces, something Eisenhower (The Supreme Commander) failed to do in his attempt to prevent the retreat.

Ever the optimist, Kesselring was confident that he could hold Italy as long as he had Italian support. The terrain was certainly favorable: the Apennine mountain range ran down the center of the peninsula, forcing any Allied force coming up from the south to split in two. Rivers running into the sea on either side of the mountains, in turn, created natural obstacles that could be defended easily.
 
German Supreme Command, however, had a gloomier view about the trustworthiness of Italians, whom they (correctly) suspected to be ready to change sides – especially after the Supreme Council of Fascism deposed Mussolini in late July 1943. Rommel and paratrooper commander Kurt Student were sent to Northern Italy and Rome, respectively. Given orders behind Kesselring’s back, they were to disarm the Italian army and seize control if Italy tried to leave the Axis. Kesselring was ordered to abandon much of Italy and retreat to the Po Valley in the north, and hand over his forces to Rommel. Refusing to give up most of the country, Kesselring submitted his resignation in protest. His career was saved by Karl Wolff, the Supreme SS and Police Leader in Italy, who intervened with Hitler, arguing that Kesselring staying in the south would delay or prevent Italian defection.

Even before the Allied landings, Kesselring had already been building several defensive lines stretching across the peninsula in defiance of his orders. Taking these lines of fortifications one by one slowed down the Allies greatly and exacted a grievous toll. Even when one line was finally breached, Kesselring just had his troops retreat to the next one, and the slog would start anew. The prolonged fighting in Italy, which lasted until the end of the war in Europe, earned Kesselring a reputation as a brilliant defensive strategist. In December 1943, one skillfully executed Luftwaffe raid struck at the Allied-held port of Bari, unwittingly blowing up a ship carrying a cargo of mustard gas, causing the toxin to spread over the port. (The Bari Air Raid)
 
Highlights of the German defense of Italy include the tenacious fighting at Monte Cassino (Razing Monte Cassino), and the rapid blocking of the U.S. amphibious landing force at Anzio (Anzio) (thought the latter was also due to the lack of initiative on the American commander’s part).

Kesselring’s skill was also supplemented by luck on one occasion. When Allied forces were finally in a position to encircle his units, vainglorious American General Mark Clark (General Mark Clark) defied orders and turned towards Rome instead to seize the city and the glory that came with it. His change of direction gave Kesselring the opportunity to slip the noose and continue fighting. He once stated that he would be able to hold Italy for six to nine months; he ended up fighting and preventing the Allies from reaching the Italian-German border for close to two years.

Historic Buildings and Jewish Laborers
Kesselring tried to preserve Italian cities of artistic significance as long as doing so did not compromise military needs too much. The defenders of the mountaintop abbey of Monte Cassino were ordered to dig defensive positions outside the structure, rather than occupy it; German soldiers only occupied the ruins after the edifice was destroyed by Allied bombing.
 
Kesselring also declared Rome an open city after the first time it was bombed by the Allies, meaning it would not be defended. The Allies rejected the declaration, and the Royal Air Force continued to run air raids against the Italian capital.
 
In Florence, Kesselring had to make a compromise between preservation and military needs. He had the city’s bridges demolished, except for the most famous one, Ponte Vecchio. That one was “only” booby-trapped to cause Allied casualties when they would predictably try to cross it. To be fair, he also had numerous old buildings blown up to impede Allied advance through the city with piles of rubble.

In September 1943, with Rome still in Axis hands, SS-leader Heinrich Himmler ordered the Jews of the city to be rounded up and deported. The German police attaché to Rome and the German consul conspired with Kesselring to save the men. Kesselring agreed to withhold the Jews and use them as forced labor to build fortifications instead, a better fate than the gas chambers. The ruse was cut short after two weeks by orders from above; 1,259 Jews were rounded up, the vast majority of them dying in concentration camps.
 
In October 1944, Kesselring was traveling in his car under blackout conditions when his driver hit an artillery piece that was being pushed onto the road from a side road in the dark. The crash killed the driver, and Kesselring suffered a fractured skull which forced him into a hospital for 12 weeks. He got out in January 1945. German troops in Italy managed to hold their ground over the winter even in his absence, as the cold weather stopped the Allied advance. Nevertheless, the Third Reich was rapidly crumbling everywhere.

Surrender, Captivity, and a War Crimes Trial
With Germany collapsing, Kesselring was given more and more impossible responsibilities, ending up in control of three army groups on the Eastern Front and two in the west by March. He did what little he could, but there was no stopping the inevitable. He eventually personally surrendered to an American mayor near Salzburg, Austria on May 9. He was taken to General Maxwell Taylor (The Last of the World War II Heroic Generals), commander of the 101st Airborne Division (The Screaming Eagles), who treated him courteously, allowing him to keep his weapons and his marshal’s baton, and to make a final visit to his headquarters unescorted before going into captivity.

Kesselring became one of the many German generals to face war crimes charges after the war. For many Italians, he was synonymous with the harshness of German occupation. German commanders on the Italian front were put on trial in Italy, but under British military law. This put the cases on shaky legal ground, as British law was used to judge non-British individuals for things they’ve done to other non-British people somewhere not in Britain. Kesselring’s trial began in 1947 and centered around the shooting of several hundred Italian civilians as reprisal for the killing of German soldiers. Eschewing the “Nuremberg defense” of just following orders, Kesselring maintained that giving orders for the reprisals was a legitimate act of war. He was found guilty and sentenced to death.