Maybe confused with Kesselring, aka Smiling Albert. He was German Air Force before he became a ground pounder. He turned out to be a good general in spite of not really having that much of a back ground.
Kesselring’s defense of Italy was brilliant; while Americans today learn the D-Day invasion was to get a “foothold in Europe”, we had landed in Italy in 1943 and were getting hammered by the Germans (Anzio, etc.). When the war ended areas in northern Italy still hadn’t been retaken.