A novel snubber circuit for high-power GTO inverters is composed of only passive components which, idealized, produce no losses. The stored energy in the turn-on and turn-off snubbers is completely recovered during a switching cycle. In the absence of a permanent circulating current in the recovery transformer, the minimum on-time duration of one half-bridge is very low. The nondissipative operation of the snubber circuit permits a liberal design of the snubber components by which the switching losses in the power semiconductors are greatly reduced. >