The Allies were determined to judge Nazi war crimes, avoiding the sham of the 1921 Leipzig trials.1 Nuremberg became a world stage, the test whether international law could be made to work. The Allies arrived in Nuremberg with different agendas. The Soviet Union, obviously used to political show trials, plodded through Nuremberg as the Grand Alliance disintegrated into Cold War rivalries. Inside their occupation zone, the Soviets imposed massive reparations and a vigorous denazification program.2 The British, contrary to received opinion, prosecuted an active program of investigation and justice. They were hindered at first by having to dismantle the temporary pseudo-Nazi local governments introduced by American civil affairs teams in areas designated for British administration.3 They also administered the region with the greatest industrial capacity and the largest numbers of former foreign laborers, suitably relabeled displaced persons (DPs), and were in a race against the onset of winter to build adequate food stores.
