ABSTRACT
The World War II was the most costly conflict in the history, in terms of casualties and destructiveness as well as wealth expended. The USSR suffered by far the most grievous total losses an estimated 10 million military and 19 million civilian dead. Germany, too, paid a high price for Hitler's ambitions almost 5 million soldiers killed along with over a million civilians. The victorious Allies were determined to bring to justice the leaders who had been responsible for starting the war and the atrocities that followed. In the case of Germany, the two main culprits had escaped the ignominy of standing trial. Hitler, the man most responsible for the war and its horrors, was dead. The war also transformed the power structure of the world. World War I had started this process with the disintegration of Austria-Hungary. The Communists modelled the regimes of the satellite states closely after the Stalinist system in the USSR.
