WAR CRIMES: For 1,413 Lives

Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, tough and able pal of Hermann Göring (and like him a onetime drug addict), never made any bones about his ruthlessness in war, except for the standard excuse of "military necessity." He was proud of having ordered the bombing of helpless Warsaw and of surrendered Rotterdam. He was "very happy" for the opportunity to try to blast Coventry off the map.

In his masterly retreat from Rome in 1944, it was "a military principle" which led him to order 10-for-1 reprisals for the killing of 32 SS troopers by Italian guerrillas. He ordered the killing of 335...

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