"Smiling Al"

KESSELRING--A SOLDIER'S RECORD (381 pp.)--Albert Kesselring--Morrow ($5).

To judge by their memoirs, German generals led sheltered lives. Most of them agree that under twelve years of Hitler rule they saw no evil, spoke none and did none. The latest to proclaim his innocence is 69-year-old Field Marshal Albert Kesselring. Loyal enough by his own admission to "enjoy Hitler's unreserved confidence," Kesselring also proved affable and adjustable enough after the war to assist U.S. Army historians and retain his wartime nickname of "Smiling Al."

A Luftwaffe general, Smiling Al Kesselring lacked the dash of a Rommel, the Prussian rigor of Von Rundstedt, or the inventive flair of a Guderian; yet he fashioned a career almost as brilliant as theirs. At war's start he commanded a single air fleet in Poland, later bossed all German air forces in North Africa, took charge of the Mediterranean theater in the slow German retreat up the boot of Italy, and ended the war as commander in chief in the West. As told in Kesselring's foot-slogging style, much of this story borders on a map-room briefing, but through it shines the quiet pride of a good soldier who believes that a soldier's chief duty is to obey orders.

Goering's "Clean Hands." "Above politics" himself, Kesselring felt only one slight qualm about the Nazis in the years before World War II. That was in 1938, when the army's Chief of Staff Werner von Fritsch was railroaded out of his post on trumped-up charges of sexual perversion. Kesselring's conscience was easily salved, however, when his personal boss, Goring, told him with "satisfaction in his eyes . . . how he had succeeded in unmasking the informer." Concludes Kesselring: "I had not the slightest doubt that Goering's hands were clean. I presumed the same of Hitler."

Only one man has unclean hands in Kesselring's book: Ribbentrop. Who was responsible for the war? "I must lay the blame on one man: Von Ribbentrop, who gave Hitler irresponsible advice." What's more, says Kesselring, Hermann Goering agreed. On the day Hitler announced Sept. 1, 1939 as X-day. Goering rang up Foreign Minister Von Ribbentrop and bawled into the phone: "Now you've got your war. It's all your doing!"

"A Germanic People." The Battle of Britain brings Kesselring to some of his most controversial thinking about the war itself. He contends 1) that the Luftwaffe was not defeated in the air over Britain, 2) that Operation "Sea-Lion," the invasion of Britain, was thought about but never seriously planned. If the Luftwaffe had been decisively bested in September 1940, argues Kesselring, it could not have continued hitting British industrial targets for the rest of that year and the spring of 1941. German planes were squandered, he admits, when they might better have been saved for a combined assault by sea, air and land; this, according to Kesselring, would have had a fine chance of victory. Why the invasion was not launched still puzzles the field marshal, but he chalks it up to Hitler's grudging fondness for the English and his hopes for a negotiated peace. Once, when the two men were discussing England's plucky defense, Hitler reminded Kesselring: "Of course, they are a Germanic people too."

After working for over three years in active harness with the Italians, Kesselring is bitter about his old Axis partners. The Italians showed "poor fighting quality." They did not take the war "with the seriousness demanded." They hoarded "vast stores of unused war material." Allied assaults on Italian divisions "invariably resulted in loss of the position." Reflecting on the overthrow of Mussolini, Kesselring writes: "It was only to be expected that as the war went on the Italians would try to make things easier for themselves by ratting to the other side." Italian "treachery" notwithstanding, he claims and probably deserves credit for sparing such culturally rich towns as Orvieto, Perugia, Urbino, Siena, Padua, Ravenna and Venice from military destruction. He admits "the destruction of the wonderful [Florentine] bridges across the Arno." As for the famed monastery of Monte Cassino, Kesselring stoutly denies that the German armies ever put it to military use.

Hanging On. On March 8, 1945, Hitler summoned Kesselring and told him he was Von Rundstedt's successor as commander in chief in the West. It is a sign of Hitler's mesmeric hold on his field marshal that with the German front crumbling everywhere, Kesselring can still describe as "lucid" Hitler's analysis of the situation, the gist of which was that the Russians could be crushed, after which the combined German armies would sweep the Americans, British and French from the Continent. Kesselring was determined to "hang on" in the West until the "decision in the East" came. Kesselring was still hanging on at V-E day.

Tried as a war criminal, Kesselring was sentenced to be shot on the ground that he was responsible for the reprisal massacre of 335 Italians in the Ardeatine Caves and more than 1,000 other Italians elsewhere. He makes a three-point defense: 1) reprisal action was in the hands of the SS; 2) partisan warfare falls outside the rules of The Hague Convention; 3) Hitler had ordered an arbitrary 10-to-1 reprisal ratio. The defense is less than convincing. In his 1947 trial, Kesselring swore under oath: "If there is any guilt, it is mine and mine alone." In July 1947 Kesselring's sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. He won his release in 1952 on the ground of ill health.

"More Than I Can Take." Since then he has been an energetic spokesman for what he regards as the unjustly smirched reputation of the German soldier. He is president of the Stahlhelm, one of Germany's largest veterans' groups. Last November he testified at a war crimes trial and 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." An enthusiast for EDC, he insists that the "war opponents of yesterday must become the peace comrades and friends of tomorrow." Formerly an unwavering Nazi in spirit, Kesselring is certainly no democrat today. He finds people "astonishing" who believe "that we must revise our ideas in accordance with democratic principles . . . That is more than I can take."

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