Britain and the International Committee of the Red Cross, 1939-1945

James Crossland's work explores the tumultuous relationship that existed during the Second World War between a neutral, impartial humanitarian organization – the International Committee of the Red Cross – and the British government, one of the conflict's key belligerents. Unlike the Red Cross, whose mandate was to provide immediate succour to any and all war victims wherever they were found, Britain's wartime humanitarian policy was that victory would have to come before relief – unfettered humanitarian action within Hitler's domain would have to wait for the arrival of Allied troops on European shores. Tracing the struggle of the International Committee of the Red Cross to work within the confines of this policy, this book tells the untold story of one of the more unusual battles of the Second World War: the battle fought within the corridors of power in Whitehall and Geneva and the camps of the Third Reich and the Far East between Swiss humanitarians and British war-makers.

James Crossland is Lecturer in Modern European History and Director of the World Wars Research Group at Murdoch University, Australia.