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.