German WWII Preliminary Record for POW Report for Albert Kesselring-Kesselring was a German Generalfeldmarschall of the Luftwaffe. In a military career that spanned both world wars, Kesselring became one of Nazi Germany's most highly decorated commanders, being one of only 27 soldiers awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds. His strategic bombing attacks in Rotterdam and Dunkirk were considered brilliant by strategists and his success during the Battle of Britain may have been complete had it not been for Goering's meddling. In December 1941, he was transferred to the Mediterranean as the Commander-in-Chief in the South. He worked closely with Rommel in North Africa and devised strategic retreats in Tunisia and the Italian peninsula that delayed Allied advances by almost a year. His noteworthy military and strategist career were marred by his involvement in the Ardeantine cave massacre of March 1944. After the war, he was convicted of these war crimes and sentenced to death for ordering the murder of the 335 Italian civilians in the Ardeatine massacre, and for inciting and ordering his troops to kill civilians in reprisals against the Italian resistance movement. The sentence was subsequently commuted to life imprisonment. A political and media campaign resulted in his release in 1952, ostensibly on health grounds. He published his memoirs, “Soldat bis zum letzten Tag” ("A Soldier to the Last Day"), in 1953. He died in 1960 at the age of 74, in Germany.
Note: These are original vintage reprints of Prisoner of War Preliminary reports These are guaranteed as described. This paperwork would have been a prisoner “intake form”, with all of the individual’s personal details including the prisoner's name, fingerprints, place of birth, next of kin, date of capture, date of arrival, date of transfer, physical description, distinguishing marks, etc.
Copies of these would have been supplied to the different departments that needed access to this information. This is one of the vintage reprints that survived from the infamous Allied prisoner-of-war camp in the Palace Hotel of Mondorf-les-Bains, in Luxembourg, code named "Camp Ashcan". Each card is annotated "CCPWE #32", an abbreviation for the Central Continental Prisoner of War Enclosure #32. Operating from May to August 1945, it served as a processing station and interrogation center for the 86 most prominent surviving Nazi leaders prior to their trial in Nuremberg, including Hermann Göring and Karl Dönitz.