Prelude to Nuremberg

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.