Richard Sorge was born in Baku in 1895, the son of a German mining engineer working for the Imperial Russian Oil Company. Intriguingly, he was also the grandson of a secretary to Karl Marx. At the age of three he returned to Germany.

During World War I he served on the Western Front and was badly wounded. From 1917 to 1918 he studied at the Universities of Berlin, Kiel and Hamburg and during this time became a Communist and an active agent for the Comintern reporting to the Glovnoye Razvedyvatel' noye Upravleniye - GRU or "Central Intelligence Administration".

Working for a German news service he went to China and based himself in Shanghai. He then went to Tokyo working as correspondent for the Frankfurter Zeitung. Tall, untidy and a heavy drinker he became something of a character in the German community in Japan, particularly when he chose a flat in one of the slum districts of Tokyo. He joined the Nazi Party and this enhanced his cover. As the Press Attache at the German Embassy in Tokyo he was a confidant of General Eugen Ott, Hitler's envoy to the Emperor.

Sorge and his Japanese assistant were finally tracked down by the Japanese counter-intelligence organisation and arrested in October 1941. It was reported that he was hanged in Tokyo on November 7, 1944.

In 1964 the USSR awarded him a posthumous "Hero of the Soviet Union" and issued a commemorative stamp showing Sorge.

Soviet army marshal who was in command of the 4th Ukrainian Front at the end of World War II. Born in Markovka, Russia, on 14 October 1892, Andrei Yeremenko was drafted into the Russian army in 1913. He fought in World War I as a junior officer. He joined the Red Guards in October 1917 and the Red Army and Communist Party in 1918. Yeremenko fought as a cavalry officer in the Russian Civil War, ending that conflict as deputy commander of a regiment. He then commanded a regiment and attended the Military Political Academy and the Frunze Military Academy in 1935. Yeremenko commanded a cavalry division between 1935 and 1938, then the VI Cossack Cavalry Corps, which he led in the Soviet invasion of eastern Poland in September 1939.

In June 1940, Yeremenko took command of a mechanized corps and was promoted to lieutenant general. When the German army invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, he was commanding the First Red Banner Far Eastern Army. Recalled to the west, he replaced General Dimitri Pavlov as Western Front commander, helping to restore a degree of stability. An outstanding tactician, he understood the importance of airpower and the need to mass armor.

In August 1941, Yeremenko assumed command of the new Bryansk Front, where he was seriously wounded in October. After his recovery, he was promoted to colonel general and put in command of Fourth Shock Army in the defense of Moscow. Again seriously wounded in February 1942, Yeremenko took command of the Southeast Front, defending Stalingrad, in August.

In January 1943, he assumed command of the Southern Front, pushing the Germans out of the Caucasus. Transferred to command the Kalinin Front in April 1943, he was made General of the Army in August. Yeremenko commanded the 1st Baltic Front in October and November 1943 for the advance on Smolensk. He then led the Independent (Black Sea) Maritime Front in the eastern Crimea, before heading the 4th Ukrainian Front from March to July 1945.

Following the end of the war, Yeremenko commanded, in turn, the Carpathian, West Siberian, and North Caucasus Military Districts until 1958. He next served as inspector general of the Ministry of Defense, until his death in Moscow on 19 November 1970.

MOSCOW (AFP) May 07, 2005

First WWII wound from June 1941 still fresh for Russian air force Marshal Ivan Pstygo rubs his scarred hands -- memory of a first clash with the Nazis as a young lieutenant in the Moldovan sky on June 22, 1941, and the harrowing flight in his flame-engulfed plane 100- kilometers (62 miles) back to base.

Against a backdrop of model MiG fighter planes, his bronze bust and a portrait in the marshal's uniform, the former airman recalled being thrown into a terrible war at the age of 26.

Speaking in the run up to 60th anniversary commemorations of the end of World War II, he also remembers the Soviet mythology of the war -- and his own take on that official history.

"Of course our troops knew that a German attack was imminent," he affirmed, challenging the widespread idea that the Germans' "Barbarossa plan" had taken the Soviet Union by surprise.

"164 divisions amassed at the borders did not slip by unnoticed. Then there were those who fled to us. We had all the proofs," he said, adding ruefully: "the problem was that we were not at all prepared."

Pstygo had just graduated from air force school -- "four years of study, I was lucky in that: most did not have more than a year of courses" -- and was stationed in Katolsky, near Chisinau, to pilot a Sukhoi-2 bomber.

It was a plane he had never flown. The rest of his comrades were not much better prepared.

"Mixed divisions of Romanians and Germans approached. Our squadron attacked between two mountains," he recalled, mimicking the attack angle of Soviet fighters and bombers, a total of 25.

"We have lost 19 planes in one mission... it was one of the hardest flights in my life," he added as his voice sank.

Once back to the airdrome, the remaining six planes lifted off again.

"Two of my comrades fell before me, they were hit, the plane was on fire and I had to fly it for another 100 kilometers. My hands were burnt. Once landed, I looked at my partner -- he was dead, with 11 bullets in his chest," he remembered.

Ivan then went to report to the battalion's commander, hunched over a map-laden table.

"Ivan, where did you come from? We've already buried you, he told me. Not buried in fact, of course. That was 'missing in action,' but in fact I had come back with 15 comrades," he said with a smile.

Ivan fought in many battles thereafter: Kiev, Kharkiv, Stalingrad.

"They called us 'horseless.' We flew whatever was available. On the whole, we were just retreating," he said.

As for the state of the Red Army in 1941, following a purge by Stalin, Marshal Pstygo -- who earned his title in 1975 -- minces no words.

"An army without a head, without officers: that's what we've had," he fumed in a booming commander's voice. "Three marshals died in battle, but as many were killed before then by Stalin. Army generals? Two were killed, but 12 were shot before the war. Divisions were commanded by captains, organisation was pathetic, we were tripping over each other."

In spring 1942, Soviet troops were surrounded at Kharkov in the eastern Ukraine, without food. "For three days they were kept alive by dry bread dropped over their heads."

"I am not a revolutionary, but they told us lies at the headquarters. They gave numbers like 1,600 planes, but 90 percent of them were still at the factory," he said before evoking the fate of officers sent to Gulag labor camps before the war.

"Two of my commanders were the 'repressed' who came out of the camp to fight. They were shattered men, they were broken in body, all over. But they had superior minds. We would have fought differently, lost fewer men, if we had them earlier," he sighed.

Battles went on. Bryansk, the crossing of Dniepr, the Battle of Kursk -- "a carnage with tanks piled three levels high."

1943 had been "chancy", but he had "loved 1944," right until the victory.

Regrets?

"My comrades, my dead men... and that we did not march on, until the sea, to Spain. Americans had no business in Europe," he said.

In a career of 42 years, he piloted 52 different types of planes and in the 1980s his last of all -- a MiG-23 jet.

At Monday's lavish May 9 World War II victory commemorations, he will be on the official tribune. Or at least he will if his heart permits him.

"They invited us, then they will push us aside," he sighed.

German army field marshal who was given command of Army Group B in 1942. Born in Dessau, Germany, on 12 November 1881 into an old and established Roman Catholic family, Maximilian Weichs zur Glon joined the 2nd Bavarian Heavy Cavalry Regiment in July 1900 and would maintain an association with the cavalry for most of his military career. He attended the War Academy in 1910 and served in several positions as a General Staff officer during World War I.

After the war, Weichs was selected to continue in the Reichswehr, the new German army. He then held several cavalry related positions. Promoted to Generalmajor (U.S. equiv. brigadier general) in April 1933, he took command of the 3rd Cavalry Division at Weimar, which became the 1st Panzer Division in 1935. Weichs was promoted to Generalleutnant (U.S. equiv. major general) in April 1935 and to General der Kavallerie (U.S. equiv. lieutenant general) in October 1936. His career suffered a temporary setback when he and 15 other generals were "retired" by Adolf Hitler following the Fritsch Affair.

Weichs was recalled to duty for the 1939 Polish Campaign that began World War II. He commanded the XIII Corps and enjoyed success at Kutno and Warsaw. Given command of the new Second Army, he participated in the Battle for France under Field Marshal Karl Rudolf Gerd von Rundstedt in the mop-up phase and was promoted to colonel general in July 1940. He commanded the forces invading northern Yugoslavia in April 1941, and after occupying Zagreb, Sarajevo, and Belgrade, he received the Yugoslav surrender on 18 April.

Second Army then moved east and participated in Operation BARBAROSSA, the invasion of the Soviet Union, as part of the southern flank of Army Group Center. Weichs fought in the battles for the Bialystok pocket, Gomel, and Bryansk. He fell ill in November and did not return to duty until January 1942, at which time his Second Army was on the northern wing of Army Group South. His forces captured Voronezh in July 1942. Weichs received command of Army Group B when Hitler divided Army Group South into two army groups in July 1942.

Army Group B eventually consisted of the Second and Sixth German Armies, the Fourth Panzer Army, the Second Hungarian Army, the Eighth Italian Army, and the Third and Fourth Romanian Armies. Not only was Weichs short of German troops, but Hitler also stripped him of half his motorized transport to support Army Group A. As the Sixth Army under General Friedrich Paulus invested Stalingrad, Weichs worried about the ability of his Axis allies to protect his flanks, and he called attention to this concern.

In November, when the Soviets launched their encirclement of Stalingrad, Weichs had no reserves, and Hitler refused his request to withdraw Sixth Army westward. Although restoring the situation was beyond the means Weichs had available, Hitler showed his lack of confidence in him by assigning most of Army Group B in late November to the newly created Army Group Don, commanded by Field Marshal Erich von Manstein. Weichs was promoted to field marshal in February 1943, but his remaining forces were distributed between Army Group Center and Army Group Don. He was transferred to the Führer Reserve on 10 July.

Weichs's retirement was short-lived. He was recalled on 26 July and named both commander in chief, Southeast, and commander in chief, Army Group F. With responsibility for all Axis forces in the Balkans, he was forced to contend both with growing guerrilla activity and with the Italian defection in September 1943. Weichs performed well, conducting several successful antipartisan operations. He also kept open supply lines for vital raw materials going to the Reich.

With the collapse of Romania and the defection of Bulgaria in August and September 1944, Weichs successfully extricated German forces in the Balkans with minimal losses. By January 1945, the remnants of Army Group F were fighting in Hungary. Hitler retired him in March. The aristocratic Weichs, despite his deep religious beliefs, remained loyal to the Führer and had the latter's respect, though not his full confidence, until the very end of the war.

Weichs was held as a prisoner after the war and was one of the defendants at the International War Crimes Tribunal, but he was released due to poor health in 1948 before the trial took place. He died in Burg Rösberg/Bonn on 27 September 1954.

References

Borchert, Klaus. Die Generalfeldmarschälle und Grossadmiräle der Wehrmacht. Woelfersheim-Berstadt, Germany: Podzun-Pallas Verlag, 1999.

Brett-Smith, Richard. Hitler's Generals. San Rafael, CA: Presidio, 1977.

Mitcham, Samuel W., Jr. Hitler's Field Marshals and Their Battles. Chelsea, MI: Scarborough House, 1990.

Moll, Otto E. Die deutschen Generalfeldmarschälle. Rastatt/Baden, Germany: Erich Pabel Verlag, 1961.

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(November 20, 1885-July 16, 1960)

German General

Jovial Kesselring was an accomplished defensive tactician who contested U.S. forces for possession of Italy during World War II. He was also the only senior German commander whom Adolf Hitler did not remove from command. His success on land is even more impressive considering that Kesselring was previously an aerial strategist.

Albert Kesselring was born in Marktsheft, Bavaria, on November 20, 1885, the son of a schoolmaster. After attending the Classical Grammar School, he joined the army as an artillery officer in 1904. Throughout World War I, Kesselring performed staff functions and was also trained as a balloon observer. He was subsequently retained by the postwar Reichswehr and by 1932 had advanced to colonel. His open, friendly demeanor led to the less-than-flattering sobriquet of "Smiling" Albert. The turning point in Kesselring's career happened in 1933 following the ascent of Adolf Hitler to power as Germany's chancellor. Hitler commenced a covert rearmament that year, and by 1935 a new air force-the Luftwaffe-was born. Kesselring, acknowledged as a brilliant administrator, was then tapped to serve as a high-ranking official within that organization, and he acquired his pilot's license at the age of 48. In 1936, he became Luftwaffe chief of staff following the death of Gen. Walter Wever in a plane crash. As such he promoted new classes of bombers and fighters that made Germany's air arm the most advanced in the world. More important, he helped pioneer and codify the close-air support tactics necessary to assist land units-the essence of blitzkrieg warfare. By 1937, his exceptional performance resulted in a promotion to general, and he departed staff functions to command Luftflotte I (Air Fleet) the following year.

World War II commenced with a German attack upon Poland, and Kesselring's aircraft played a decisive role throughout that successful campaign. His bombers wreaked havoc ahead of German tank columns, and he developed the mass-bombing tactics that gutted Warsaw. In the spring of 1940, Hitler's attention turned west, and Kesselring, now commanding Luftflotte II, became actively engaged in the campaign against the Low Countries and France. Both were speedily overcome thanks in part to his excellent aircrews and equipment. However, the Luftwaffe was stunned after encountering British Supermarine Spitfires over Dunkirk, which extracted a heavy toll from Kesselring's previously unstoppable armadas. Consequently, thanks to Marshal Hermann Gรถring's mismanagement of airpower, the British escaped from Dunkirk with their army intact. That summer the Luftwaffe was pitted against the Royal Air Force (RAF) for control of the skies over England. Both sides fought with marvelous tenacity and courage, but German losses were approximately twice as large as England's. Kesselring originated the strategy of bombing RAF airfields as a direct way of stripping British aerial defenses, but, with Gรถring, he eventually approved Hitler's shifting of priorities from military to civilian targets. This proved a gross strategic miscalculation, for it granted the hard-pressed British Fighter Command the time needed to regroup and finally win the battle. Consequently, the Germans canceled their intended invasion of England. Hitler was nonetheless pleased by Kesselring's performance as an air chief, and in July 1940 he was elevated to field marshal. The following spring he transferred his refurbished command to Poland in anticipation of invading Russia. Throughout the summer and fall, waves of his bombers spearheaded Gen. Fedor von Bock's armored columns during the drive to Moscow. His talents were suddenly required on another front, and in the fall of 1941 Kesselring established new headquarters at Rome.

Now situated as commander in chief South, Kesselring accepted responsibility for conducting the war in North Africa. His mission also included shoring up the flagging defenses of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, as well as coordinating supplies and offensive moves by German forces. His brilliant but mercurial subordinate, Gen. Erwin Rommel, proved difficult to restrain at a distance, yet the British were nearly run out of Egypt. But lengthening supply lines posed difficult problems, and Kesselring advocated capturing the British-held island of Malta. He then began an 11-day aerial offensive against airfields, port facilities, and defenses, but Hitler suddenly canceled the invasion, sending most of Kesselring's aircraft to Russia. Within six months, U.S. forces under Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower had landed in Algeria and began pressing east while victorious British forces under Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery advanced to the west. Rommel was caught between the pincer, and Kesselring helped orchestrate an effective rear-guard action. However, an ambitious and possibly decisive counterblow was lost when Rommel's attack through Kasserine Pass was not properly supported by forces under Gen. Hans-Jurgen Arnim. By May 1943, it no longer mattered, as Allied forces captured the whole of Tunisia and all German forces stationed there. The focus of war now shifted to Italy.

Given the gravity of the situation, Kesselring arrived in Sicily to direct its defense personally. When the Allied invasion materialized that July, it proved unstoppable, but he nonetheless executed a brilliant fighting withdrawal whereby 100,000 German soldiers and 10,000 vehicles were evacuated to the mainland. He then spent several weeks preparing for the defense of Italy, a rugged, mountainous peninsula that neutralized most Allied advantages in tanks and manpower. Over the next 20 months, Kesselring proved himself a master at defensive tactics. American forces under Gen. Mark Clark landed at Salerno on September 9, 1943, which partly caught the defenders by surprise, but Kesselring rushed men and tanks to the threatened zone and nearly pushed the Allies into the sea. For the remainder of the war, German forces gave ground slowly and in good order, making their enemy pay heavily for every inch of terrain. Snug in their positions along the well-prepared defensive position designated the Gustav Line, Kesselring's men defied several hard-pressed attempts to evict them. From November 1943 to May 1944, the strong points around Monte Cassino under Gen. Fridolin von Senger und Etterlin were an embarrassing thorn in Clark's side. Frustrated by a lack of success, the Allies tried mounting an end run around the Germans by landing at Anzio, near Rome. Kesselring reacted with his usual promptness and the beachhead was contained. It was not until May 1944 that the Germans forcibly abandoned the Gustav Line, which enabled the Americans to finally enter Rome. The defenders, meanwhile, fell back to prepared positions called the Gothic Line, and the entire bloody process repeated itself. Despite numerical superiority and command of the air and sea, the Allies would not push the remaining Germans out of Italy until war's end. Kesselring's excellent eye for defensive terrain, and his masterful shifting of resources, were decisive factors in maintaining that agonizing pace.

In March 1945, Hitler summoned Kesselring from Italy to succeed Gerd von Rundstedt as commander in chief West. His orders were to hold everywhere and drive the Allies back, but Germany's position was essentially hopeless. Following a few stiff rearguard actions, Kesselring surrendered to the Americans at Saalfield on May 6, 1945. By that time he was one of few high-ranking German officials that Hitler had not sacked. After the war, Kesselring was imprisoned and charged with war crimes. Apparently, several units under his command executed 332 Italian citizens in retaliation for partisan activities. Kesselring was found guilty and condemned to death, but his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment by Prime Minister Winston Churchill. This was done apparently at the behest of several Allied commanders. He gained an early release on account of poor health in October 1952 and retired to private life to write his memoirs. Kesselring died at Bad Nauheim on July 16, 1960, hailed by his former enemies as one of Germany's top commanders. His far-sighted aviation policies as the Luftwaffe's chief administrator should not be overlooked.

Bibliography

Barnett, Correlli, ed. Hitler's Generals. New York: Grove Weidenfield, 1989; Botjer, George F. Sideshow War: The Italian Campaign, 1943-1945. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1996; Brett-Smith, Richard. Hitler's Generals. London: Osprey, 1976; Chant, Christopher, ed. Hitler's Generals and Their Battles. London: Salamander Books, 1977; Fraschka, Gunter. Knights of the Reich. Atglen, PA: Schiffer, 1994; Humble, Richard. Hitler's Generals. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1974; Kesselring, Albert. The Memoirs of Field Marshal Albert Kesselring. London: Kimber, 1974; Lucas, James S. Hitler's Commanders: German Bravery in the Field, 1939-1945. London: Cassell, 2000; Lucas, James S. Hitler's Enforcers. London: Arms and Armour, 1996; Macksey, Kenneth. Kesselring: German Master Strategist of the Second World War. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1996; Mitcham, Samuel W. Hitler's Field Marshals and Their Battles. Chelsea, MI: Scarborough House, 1990.