Prelude to Nuremberg: Allied War Crimes Policy and the Question of Punishment [Hardcover]

Arieh J. Kochavi (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1998

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. In this book, Kochavi demonstrates that 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 in both U.S. and British archives, Kochavi painstakingly reconstructs the prevailing attitudes and constraints that prevented a joint policy on war crimes from being adopted by the Allies during the war and shows how considerations of Realpolitik dominated the thinking in both Washington and London. In contrast to earlier works, this book 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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

As WWII is now indelibly associated with the Holocaust, it may be startling to recall just how little these atrocities figured in Allied thinking of the time. According to Kochavi, inter-departmental conflicts and maneuvering for dominance within and between the U.S. and British governments, fear of Nazi reprisals against Allied POWs and the political positioning of Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin blocked any unequivocal war crimes policy until after an Allied victory was deemed certain in 1945. The United Nations War Crimes Commission, conceived in 1943 by the British and the U.S. as a palliative to public opinion and governments in exile, was never intended by either government to have any decision-making power. Kochavi shows how persistent efforts, especially by U.S. UNWCC representative Herbert Pell, resulted in the powerful new concepts included in the idea of crimes against humanity. Prominent among these was the argument that the persecution of individuals for reasons of race, religion or personal beliefs is illegal?even when nationals are persecuted by their own government. Such decisions forced the incorporation of an entire new class of crimes into international law, for which the UNWCC then gathered invaluable evidence for postwar prosecution. Kochavi, a historian at the University of Haifa, has taken a complicated, nuanced subject and, through extensive research and forceful retelling, has shed light not only on WWII but also on the response to similar atrocities in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, in which, once again, political interests have outweighed moral considerations.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

The Nuremberg trials were the culmination of a bitter, complex struggle to establish a policy to try war criminals after World War II. The author, a senior lecturer in history and director of the Strochlitz Institute of Holocaust Studies at the University of Haifa, presents an unbiased account of events that preceded the trials. In many ways, his book also reflects emerging Cold War politics, as Britain, Russia, and the United States each maneuvered to prevent the other from becoming a dominant power. Under pressure from Poland and Jewish refugees, Britain established the War Crimes Commission in 1942. But during the war it accomplished little as both the British Foreign Office and the U.S. State Department either opposed it or wanted to delay its actions, while Russia wanted to use it to punish her enemies, both internal and external. The commission did, however, lay the groundwork for the Nuremberg Trials, which were independent of it. Kochavi provides an excellent account of Allied efforts to control commission policies and of the developing policy for trying war criminals. A complex and detailed work; for informed lay readers and scholars.ARichard P. Hedlund, Ashland Community Coll., KY
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 312 pages
• Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Pr; 1St Edition edition (October 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 080782433X
• ISBN-13: 978-0807824337
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,731,184 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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