The Central Registry of War Criminals and Security Suspects, more commonly known as CROWCASS, was an organisation set up to assist the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

War Crimes Commission and Allied governments in tracing ex-enemy nationals suspected of committing war crimes or atrocities in Europe during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. The organisation was originally set up by the

Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF; ) was the headquarters of the Commander of Allies of World War II, Allied forces in northwest Europe, from late 1943 until the end of World War II. US General Dwight D. Eisenhower was the ...

(SHAEF) in 1945.Guy Walters, ''Hunting evil'', Penguin Random House, 2009, (), chap. 2, p. 65-80. The CROWCASS list grew to 150,000 suspects. In 1947, CROWCASS published a four volume list divided into Germans, Non Germans and two supplementary lists of people suspected of committing war crimes between September 1939 and May 1945. To Allied Nazi hunters the CROWCASS lists became known as the 'Nazi Hunter's Bible'. The lists contain over 60,000 people in all. Not all of them are war criminals (some were simply being sought for interrogation or to act as witnesses), however within the pages of CROWCASS are the alleged perpetrators of tens of thousands of war crimes. Among those on the list are Case Registry No 1:

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

- wanted for murder by

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...

and

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

. In 2005, the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

government sanctioned the publication of the CROWCASS Consolidated Wanted Lists. Originally the lists were not intended to be in the public domain until the year 2023.

Footnotes

References

* Simpson, Christopher. ''Blowback: The first full account of America's recruitment of Nazis, and its disastrous effects on our domestic and foreign policy'', Chapter 6 'CROWCASS' pp. 66–79, 1988, Collier Books, Macmillan Publishing Company. 398 pp. * ''The Central Registry of War Criminals and Security Suspects, Consolidated Wanted Lists'' (1947), 2005, The Naval and Military Press, Uckfield {{DEFAULTSORT:Central Registry of War Criminals and Security Suspects International judicial organizations Organizations established in 1945

See also

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References