Between November 1945 and October 1946, the International
Military Tribunal in Nuremberg tried some of the most notorious
political and military figures of Nazi Germany. The issue of
punishing war criminals was widely discussed by the leaders of
the Allied nations, however, well before the end of the war. As
Arieh Kochavi demonstrates, the policies finally adopted,
including the institution of the Nuremberg trials, represented
the culmination of a complicated process rooted in the domestic
and international politics of the war years.
Drawing on extensive research, Kochavi painstakingly
reconstructs the deliberations that went on in Washington and
London at a time when the Germans were perpetrating their worst
crimes. He also examines the roles of the Polish and Czech
governments-in-exile, the Soviets, and the United Nations War
Crimes Commission in the formulation of a joint policy on war
crimes, as well as the neutral governments' stand on the question
of asylum for war criminals. This compelling account thereby
sheds new light on one of the most important and least understood
aspects of World War II.