Albert Kesselring conflict World War II
Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring (30 November 1885 – 16 July 1960) was a German military officer and convicted war criminal who served in the Luftwaffe during World War II. In a career which spanned both world wars, Kesselring became one of Nazi Germany's most highly decorated commanders, being one of only 27 military personnel awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds.
Kesselring joined the Bavarian Army as an officer cadet in 1904, serving 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 Army Staff, despite not having attended the War Academy. Kesselring served in the Reichswehr after the war, but was discharged in 1933 to become head of the Department of Administration at the Ministry of Aviation, where he became involved in the re-establishment of the German 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 Luftwaffe forces in during German invasions of Poland and France, the Battle of Britain and Operation Barbarossa. As Wehrmacht Commander-in-Chief South, he was the overall German commander in the Mediterranean theatre, which included the North African campaign. Kesselring conducted a defensive campaign against Allied forces in Italy, being involved in ordering several massacres, until he was injured in an accident in October 1944. In his final campaign of the war, he commanded German forces on the Western Front. During the war, he won the respect of his Allied opponents for his military accomplishments.
After the war, Kesselring was convicted of war crimes and sentenced to death for ordering the murder of 335 Italian civilians in the Ardeatine massacre, and for inciting and ordering his troops to kill civilians as part of reprisals against the Italian resistance movement. The sentence was subsequently commuted to life imprisonment. A political and media campaign resulted in his release in 1952, ostensibly on health grounds. He published his memoirs, Soldat bis zum letzten Tag ("A Soldier to the Last Day"), in 1953. Kesselring accepted the honorary presidency of three veterans' organisations: the Luftwaffenring, consisting of Luftwaffe veterans; the Verband Deutsches Afrikakorps, the veterans' association of the Afrika Korps; and, most controversially, the right-wing Der Stahlhelm before dying in 1960.World War II
Poland
In the Polish campaign that began World War II, Kesselring's Luftflotte 1 operated in support of Army Group North, commanded by Generaloberst Fedor von Bock. Kesselring had 1,105 aircraft in comparison to Alexander Löhr's 729 with Luftflotte 4 in support of Generaloberst Gerd von Rundstedt's Army Group South. Kesselring gave a high priority to attacks on airfields. Strategic targets like aircraft and aircraft-related armament factories were attacked during the air superiority mission and formed part of it. Once the air battle was won, only then did the Luftwaffe direct its attention to close air support and air interdiction.The tactical and operational focus of the Luftwaffe in the first days of the campaign was not a repudiation of strategic bombardment. The planned strategic bombing of Warsaw (Operation Wasserkante), scheduled to commence from 1 September, was postponed due to bad weather. By the time the weather cleared, the army support operations were going so well there was a reluctance to shift emphasis.The Luftwaffe had difficulty locating the dispersed Polish airfields, and only 24 Polish aircraft were destroyed on the ground. The counter-air campaign was not as successful as it may have been due to faulty fuses on bombs–a lesson soon rectified. Air superiority was accomplished through destroying communications, which increased the pace of the army advance and enabled ground forces to overrun Polish airstrips and early warning sites. Sporadic Polish aerial resistance continued until 14 September. The Polish Air Force earned Kesselring's respect and he considered that Polish pilots and aircraft were not inferior. Kesselring himself was shot down during the campaign, the first of the five times he was shot down during World War II.Although not under Bock's command, Kesselring's purpose was to support Army Group North in closing the Polish Corridor from the third day, with emphasis thereafter on supporting the 3rd Army as it advanced along the Vistula to isolate Warsaw from the east. From 8 September Kesselring began interdiction operations against bridges as German forces advanced on Warsaw. When a powerful Polish counter-attack created a crisis, he contributed Fliegerdivision 1 to the Battle of the Bzura. The division contained 70 per cent of his dive-bombers and was assigned to Löhr on 6 September. The air attacks assisted in the destruction of two Polish armies.On 16/17 September the air fleets were notified of the Soviet invasion of Poland. Luftflotte 1 support operations against troop concentrations ceased in central and southern Poland to avoid friendly-fire incidents. Kesselring attempted to crush Polish resistance by making a series of air attacks against Warsaw in the final week of September. With the military campaign virtually over, Polish resistance was confined to the Hel Peninsula, Warsaw, and Modlin. Kesselring's air fleet was assigned to the north of the city. In the ensuing attacks, approximately 10 per cent of the city's buildings were destroyed and 40 per cent damaged. The bombing killed between 20,000 and 25,000 civilians. Kesselring insisted that only military targets were attacked, but the lack of precision munitions made the bombing indiscriminate and militarily ineffective.For his part in the Polish campaign, Kesselring was personally awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross by Hitler.
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