Student, General Kurt

Student, General Kurt (1890–1978),Luftwaffe officer whose innovative ideas helped form the German airborne forces which played a crucial role (see Eben Emael) in Hitler's western offensive in May 1940 (see FALL GELB) and which captured Crete a year later.

During the First World War Student commanded a fighter squadron and, as Germany was banned from having an air force by the Versailles settlement, later helped foster the art of gliding. In early 1938 he was appointed to command Germany's first paratroop division, Fliegerdivision 7, and when he became inspector of German airborne forces later that year he began developing gliders which would land his newly formed 22nd Division. On 14 May 1940 he was severely wounded in Rotterdam, but returned to duty in September and was promoted maj-general.

Student's largest operation was the capture of Crete by his Fliegerkorps 11 in May 1941. Losses were so heavy that Hitler forbade any more large-scale offensive airborne operations, and Student's forces were thereafter mostly employed as ground troops; but it was his forces, and his planning, that helped Skorzeny rescue Mussolini in September 1943. He was promoted general in September 1944 when his First Parachute Army helped defend Arnhem (see MARKET-GARDEN), and from October 1944 until February 1945 he commanded Army Group H in the Netherlands. A prison sentence by a British military court in May 1946 was not confirmed.