The Kesselring Trial

Abstract

The first trial held in Italy by the Allied authorities was that of General Eberhard von Mackensen—the commander of the XIV Army of the Wehrmacht in spring 1944, whose operational area, at that time, included the capital—and of General Kurt Mältzer, commander of the Rome Military Headquarters in the same period. They were indicted for the massacre of 335 citizens of Rome, which occurred on March 24, 1944, at the Ardeatine Caves as a reprisal for the attack in Via Rasella in Rome.¹ Those proceedings were the first in an extremely short series of trials: in fact, after Mackensen and Mältzer, the Allies only brought to trial the Commander in Chief of the Wehrmacht in Italy, Field Marshal Albert Kesselring; SS General Simon; and General Crasemann, while other minor defendants, including Captain Strauch, Obersturmbannführer Kappler, and Captain Reder, were tried a few months later by Italian military courts.