[3] Graduating from the Christian Ernestinum Secondary School in Bayreuth in 1904, Kesselring joined the German Army as a Fahnenjunker (officer cadet) in the 2nd Bavarian Foot Artillery Regiment.

[9] He distinguished himself in the Battle of Arras in 1917, "by his tireless and assiduous work, and by the preparation of clear and carefully constructed orders",[10] despite being on duty for over twenty hours, and succeeded in halting the British advance.

A dispute with the leader of the local right-wing paramilitary Freikorps led to the issuance of an arrest warrant for his alleged involvement in a putsch against the command of III Bavarian Corps, and Kesselring was thrown into prison.

[25] 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.

[35] Air superiority was accomplished by destroying communications, which increased the pace of the army advance and enabled ground forces to overrun Polish airstrips and early warning sites.

[53] Wartime Allied newspapers predicted that Kesselring "will go down in history as the man who directed the bombing of the helpless Dutch city of Rotterdam, and slaughtered thousands of civilians.

[126] Kesselring was critical of Rommel's performance in the Battle of Bir Hakeim, a vital position held by the 1st Free French Brigade that formed the southern pivot of the British Gazala Line.

After a ground assault led by Rommel in person, and air strikes by 124 Stukas and 76 Junkers Ju 88s escorted by 170 Bf 109s, Bir Hakeim was evacuated by the Free French on 10 June.

[128] For his part in the campaign, Kesselring was awarded the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords,[129] but he lost his one-rank advantage over his subordinates; Rommel was promoted to Generalfeldmarschall on 22 June, and Ugo Cavallero became a Marshal of Italy on 1 July, followed by Ettore Bastico on 12 August.

[131] Cavallero's diary and Generalmajor Friedrich von Mellenthin's account in Panzer Battles support this version of events, but on 24 June 1942 Bastico and Kesselring approved Rommel's request to pursue the British Eighth Army into Egypt.

Kesselring's command also included the troops in Greece and the Balkans until the end of the year, when Hitler created another army group headquarters under Generalfeldmarschall Wilhelm List, naming him Wehrmacht Commander-in-Chief South East.

[143] By December, the Allied commander, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, was forced to concede that Kesselring had won the race; the final phase of Torch had failed and the Axis could only be ejected from Tunisia after a prolonged struggle.

[165] Mussolini was rescued by the Germans in Unternehmen Eiche, a raid planned by Student and carried out by SS-Obersturmbannführer Otto Skorzeny on 12 September, the details of which were deliberately, though unsuccessfully, kept from Kesselring, according to his memoirs.

Allied artillery was reduced in effectiveness due to the poor observation of well-concealed German positions, and the need to fire at high angles to clear the mountain tops.

As a result, on 6 November 1943, Hitler ordered Rommel and his 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.

Kesselring diverted troops to oppose Clark's attack, and the result was three days of bloody and fruitless American assaults, while the gap between the Tenth and Fourteenth Armies was poorly defended.

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.

In response, Kesselring rescinded his order and issued another edict to his troops on 21 August, acknowledging 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.

He was quick to reorganise his forces and shift reserves to meet our attacks ... As he later wrote, after he recovered from the car accident, Kesselring was summoned by Hitler to relieve Generalfeldmarschall Rundstedt as Commander-in-Chief West on 10 March 1945, following the disastrous loss of the intact Ludendorff Bridge over the Rhine during the Battle of Remagen.

When a staff officer sought to make him aware of the hopelessness of the situation, Kesselring told him that he had driven through the entire army rear area and not seen a single hanged man.

[270] At the last minute, Kesselring had a change of heart and decided not to accept the agreement, as he felt it might imperil Army Group G.[269] On 30 April, he relieved both Vietinghoff and his chief of staff, General der Panzertruppe Hans Röttiger, putting them at the disposition of the OKW for a possible court martial.

He was taken to see Major General Maxwell D. Taylor, the commander of the US 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.

In a May 1947 interview, Leese said he was "very sad" to hear of what he considered "British victor's justice" being imposed on Kesselring, an "extremely gallant soldier who had fought his battles fairly and squarely".

[304] 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.

[308] 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 Küchler.

[313] Upon regaining 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.

In the poem, Calamandrei stated that if 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".

While recognising his talents as a general, Die Zeit noted that Kesselring "clearly never posed himself the question: 'Where does blind obedience end and a sense of responsibility start to take effect, if not at the highest levels of command?

His former chief of staff, General der Kavallerie Siegfried Westphal, spoke for the veterans of North Africa and Italy, describing Kesselring as "a man of admirable strength of character whose care was for soldiers of all ranks".

[331] Also present were the former SS-Oberst-Gruppenführer Sepp Dietrich, ex-Chancellor Franz von Papen, Schörner, Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz, Otto Remer, SS-Standartenführer Joachim Peiper and Rahn.