We present a detailed investigation of the NLO polarization of the top quark in t t-bar production at a polarized linear e^+ e^- collider with longitudinally polarized beams. By appropiately tuning the polarization of the beams one can achieve close
to maximal values for the top quark polarization over most of the forward hemisphere for a large range of energies. This is quite welcome since the rate is largest in the forward hemisphere. One can also tune the beam polarization to obtain close to zero polarization over most of the forward hemisphere.
We discuss in detail top quark polarization in above-threshold (t bar t)-production at a polarized linear e^+ e^- collider. We pay particular attention to the minimization and maximization of the polarization of the top quark by tuning the longitudin
al polarization of the e^+ and e^- beams. The polarization of the top quark is calculated in full next-to-leading order QCD. We also discuss the beam polarization dependence of the longitudinal spin-spin correlations of the top and antitop quark spins.