Kesselring, Albert

views updated May 23 2018

Kesselring, Albert (1885–1960) German general. During World War II, he commanded the Luftwaffe, later becoming commander-in-chief in Italy (1943) and then supreme commander on the Western front (1945). Implicated in a 1943 massacre of Italian hostages, in 1947 he was sentenced to death, later commuted to imprisonment, by a British court.