| Allied war crimes in World War II | |
|---|---|
| Part of World War II | |
 | |
| Location | Europe, Asia, Africa, and Middle East |
| Date | 1939–1945 |
Attack type | Mass murder, War crimes, Bombing, Crimes against humanity |
| Perpetrator | Allies |
| Defenders | Germany, Italy, Japan |
| Motive | Anti-fascism, Anti-German sentiment, Anti-Italian sentiment, Anti-Japanese sentiment |
During World War II, the Allies committed legally proven war crimes and violations of the laws of war against either civilians or military personnel of the Axis powers. At the end of World War II, many trials of Axis war criminals took place, most famously the Nuremberg trials and Tokyo Trials. In Europe, these tribunals were set up under the authority of the London Charter, which only considered allegations of war crimes committed by people who acted in the interests of the Axis powers. Some war crimes involving Allied personnel were investigated by the Allied powers and led in some instances to courts-martial. Some incidents alleged by historians to have been crimes under the law of war in operation at the time were, for a variety of reasons, not investigated by the Allied powers during the war, or were investigated but not prosecuted.
According to an article in Der Spiegel by Klaus Wiegrefe, many personal memoirs of Allied soldiers have been willfully ignored by historians because they were at odds with the "greatest generation" mythology surrounding World War II. This has started to change, with books such as The Day of Battle by Rick Atkinson, in which he describes Allied war crimes in Italy, and D-Day: The Battle for Normandy, by Antony Beevor.[1] Beevor's latest work suggests that Allied war crimes in Normandy were much more extensive "than was previously realized".[2]