Allen Dulles, the OSS, and Nazi War Criminals : The Dynamics of Selective Prosecution

Kerstin von Lingen shows how Nazi SS-General Karl Wolff avoided war crimes prosecution because of his role in 'Operation Sunrise', negotiations conducted by high-ranking American, Swiss and British officials - in violation of the Casablanca agreements with the Soviet Union - for the surrender of German forces in Italy.

This book examines the circumstances surrounding SS-Obergruppenführer Karl Wolff''s escape from prosecution for war crimes in 1945. Wolff avoided prosecution because of his role in ''Operation Sunrise'', negotiations conducted by high-ranking American, Swiss and British officials - in violation of the Casablanca agreements with the Soviet Union - for the surrender of German forces in Italy that enabled the Anglo-American forces to take Trieste. After 1945, Allied officials, amongst them Allen Dulles, in a move that later helped him ascend to the head of the CIA, shielded Wolff from prosecution to maintain secrecy about the negotiations. ''Operation Sunrise'' thus relates to the early origins of the Cold War in Europe and had wide-ranging implications, even in the field of justice: new evidence suggests that the Western Allies not only failed to ensure cooperation between their respective national war crimes prosecution organizations, but in certain cases even obstructed justice by withholding evidence from the prosecution.