Dequan Storyteller - The Situation in Italy in World War II and Kesselring's Plan (I)

After the fall of Tunisia in May 1943, the Germans knew that the next target of the Allies was Sicily, but did not actively raise troops to defend the area, one of which was naturally to concentrate limited forces for the upcoming summer campaign on the Eastern Front, on the other hand, for the Italians with a grassy character, Germany had a lesson in World War I, Hitler suspected that once the Allies landed on Italian soil, then Italy would turn against the enemy, so that the German army in Italy was cut off from the supply line. Then fought simultaneously with both Allied and Italian armies. Any troop sent by Italy could fall into a huge trap, which is why Hitler rejected Rommel's plan to withdraw the Afrika Korps to Fight in Italy, because he knew that if the Allies approached Italy, then Mussolini would fall and Italy would defect, so the support point for the southern line of the Axis powers was either in Tunisia or in the Alps, and Germany was not prepared to defend in Italy. So when the German Afrika Korps were annihilated in Tunis, Hitler had prepared for the worst, fighting in the Alps.

However, compared with Hitler's pessimistic mood, Marshal Kesselring, the commander of the Axis Forces' air force in the Southern Theater, had a different view. Kesselring was a very experienced officer who came from the artillery unit and then spent most of his time in the post-World War I disarmament departments in the training of troops and the development of new weapons. Shortly after his return to the Army's front-line combat units, the Air Force was secretly established in 1933, and he was selected by Goering for his past career in the logistics and equipment department, and was transferred to the logistics equipment department of the Air Force. Although he didn't like the job very much, he showed his talents during the formation of the Air Force. In the process, he learned flight and combat techniques, and worked hard to squeeze himself from the logistics department into the combat command department. Lady Luck took care of him in 1936, and the Chief of the General Staff of the Air Force, who was killed in a flight accident, took over the position as the third person in the Air Force after Goering and Milch. In this position, he had a bad relationship with Mirsy, the deputy commander of the Air Force. Milch was once the general manager of Lufthansa, Germany's largest airline (there was no title of president and CEO at that time), and Goering deliberately poached him as his deputy when he formed the German Air Ministry and The Air Force, but as Milch's rise in the Air Ministry and the Air Force, Goering became jealous and worried that he would take his place, so he often sided with Kesselring in the fight between Kesselring and Milch, and used Kesselring's rise against Milch. At first, Kesselring was grateful to Goering, but he soon understood that this was just Goering's power, and tired of this official game, he applied for a front-line combat unit.

After the start of World War II, he led his Air Force Air Force to the East and West Fronts, with outstanding achievements (the Air Force is the largest combat unit of a national air force, equivalent to the Air Force Group, and Germany usually has an air force attached to an Army group to fight). In November 1941, with the defeat of the Afrika Korps in Rommel at Tobruk and the ensuing British counteroffensive, Kesselring was urgently appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force in the Southern Theater, commanding axis air forces throughout the Mediterranean. He remained in Italy in the ensuing wars and gained a deeper understanding of the situation in Italy. He had a different view of Hitler's plan to abandon all of Italy and defend the Alps, because this plan not only deprived the Axis powers of a large economic zone, but also completely exposed Germany's hinterland to Allied air raids, and if it could hold on to Italy, then Germany would be able to use Italy's manpower, industry, and resources to continue its war. Hitler's abandonment of Italy was based on the assumption that Italy would soon turn against the enemy, so that the rear supply lines of the German army fighting in Italy would be decided, and the Allied and Italian armies would have to be fought at the same time, and the total annihilation of the army would be the only result. However, this assumption was that the Italians and the Italian army would act actively to fight, but if the Italians did nothing, their armies would neither fight with the Allies against Germany, and the Italians would not take any resistance in the face of German occupation, then the Germans would only have to deal with the landing Allied forces. Italy's long, north-south terrain and the complex terrain of the central Apennine Mountains were very defensive, and if Germany could establish a direction south of Naples, it would be possible to take all of Italy's richest north for itself, and then throw the impoverished south to the Allies as an economic burden, which looked very attractive.

But the above plan is based on the premise that the Italians will do nothing, and what reason can it be to prove that the Italians, who were once one of the four european powers, will easily comply with the Italians, who still have a million troops and a fleet more powerful than Germany? After successive experiences in Stalingrad and Tunis, the self-confidence of Hitler and the German top brass had been seriously weakened, the German high command and the army staff were opposed to the plan, and Kesselring had little evidence that the future Italians would do anything - because this was simply something that could not be confirmed, which was pure Kesselring's feeling, but fortunately Hitler was also a believer in feelings, and he decided to let Kesselring try it under limited conditions.

Hitler ordered a two-handed preparation, drawing several divisions from the Eastern Front, mixing some of the old, sick and disabled of the reserve army, and establishing a new Army Group B in southern Austria, commanded by Rommel, whose task was to establish a defensive line in the Alps and wait for an opportunity to seize the Italian-controlled pass. The other italian forces, which formed Army C, were commanded by Kesselring, who established a direction south of Naples and, in the event of Italy's defection, captured central Italy such as Rome and Naples. If Kesselring's plan succeeded, army B would be used as his reserve, and if his plan was unsuccessful, then Rommel would command army B south to northern Italy to open up a retreat to the Alps.