Cassino to the Alps - US Army Center Of Military History

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between Army Group C and OKW and
was to hang like a heavy cloud over the
army group headquarters as Vietinghoff
prepared plans for defensive measures
to be taken w hen the Allied armies
resumed the offensive. 2
In early February OK W had informed
Kesselring that under no circumstances
was he to abandon major
portions of his front voluntarily. To
that directive he replied that, while he
had no such intention, he would like to
be free to pull back in certain sectors
even in advance of an Allied attack
when an attack appeared imminent, for
he lacked the manpower to hold every
sector of the front in its present location
against heavy Allied pressure. Kesselring
observed that had he been given
that kind of freedom prior to the U.S.
10th Mountain Division's recent attack
at Monte Belvedere, he might have
been spared the necessity of committing
the 29th Panzer Grenadier Division from
his army group reserve. Yet the most
OKW would grant was permission to
fall back only in those sectors against
which a large-scale Allied operation was
already under way.:l
That concession hardly afforded the
field marshal or his successor much
strategic flexibility. If the Allied spring
offensive forced Kesselring to abandon
his positions in the Apennines, he saw
no alternative to fighting a series of
delaying actions along each of the many
river lines as he withdrew into the Alps.
Although the German high com-
2 Greiner and Schramm, ed., OKW/WFSt, KTB,
IV(2), 1394-99; MS # C-064 (Kesselring), pp. 123-
30; Jodi Diary, 9 Mar 45.
"Greiner and Schramm, ed., OKW/WFSt, IV(2),
p. 1394. Unless otherwise cited the following is
from this soun:e.
CASSINO TO THE ALPS
mand at first frowned on the plan,
Kesselring 'remained convinced that as
long as he was commander-in-chief in
Italy, he could, as he so frequently had
done in the past, obtain the Fuehrer's
approval to disengage before the situation
became catastrophic. While Army
Group C's commander had no intention
of ordering an immediate large-scale
withdrawal, neither did he intend to
fight the decisive battle for northern
Italy along the river lines south of the
Reno, since to do that would stake the
future of the entire campaign on one
card, a card that offered him little
chance of saving his armies from destruction.
Regardless of the high command's
views, Kesselring believed his
only choice to be the plan he had
developed: withdrawal under pressure
of an Allied offensive while fighting
delaying actions along a succession of
favorable defensive positions based on
those river lines. That defensive strategy
had worked well in the past and
could, if followed, make the last offensive
costly for the Allied armies.
On 22 February, however, a directive
from the Fuehrer dashed Kesselring's
hopes for even that much freedom of
action, Hitler acknowledged that although
Army Group C's over-all strength
was admittedly weak, the solution lay
not in Kesselring's plan but rather in
deployment in greater depth in the
sector facing the greatest threat. While
Hitler would raise no objection to
planned withdrawals to stronger positions
in the face of a large-scale Allied
offensive, he would never consent to
voluntary withdrawals by means of a
series of delaying actions. That, Hitler
believed, would destroy the morale of
the troops. On the eve of the Allied