Robert H. Jackson at the Nuremberg trials, 1945-1946 as remembereded by his personal bodyguard.

• Author: Fuchs, Moritz
• Position: Testimonial

Having been shipped to the European Theatre of War in October 1944 as one of thousands of infantry soldier replacements, Pvt. Moritz Fuchs was sent via Scotland, Omaha Beach and Belgium to the First Infantry Division: the "Big Red One." Our 26th Regiment, 3rd Battalion, was fully involved east of Aachen in the Battle of the Huertgen Forest, where I was wounded on November 19th. Our whole squad was wiped out that day. Whitey Swarthout, our platoon leader who had been with the 1st Division since the African Campaign, was due for a prized thirty-day leave when he became the first soldier I saw get killed. Deadly shrapnel from the German 88 millimeter guns burst in the pine trees, spraying all over the ground.

Evacuated through Cherbourg, I spent three months at the Army Hospital at Blandford, England. The Army took thousands of casualties in the Huertgen Forest, even before the Battle of the Bulge began in December. I returned to my outfit in February 1945, to the very same area that was lost and recovered by the Army after the Bulge. We crossed the Roer River, and the Rhine at Remagen, before engaging again in battle in the Harz Mountains. It was there, in April of 1945, that news came that President Roosevelt had died. Our 1st Division was transferred to Patton's 3rd Army as we moved eastward and ended the war on May 8th, in Czechoslovakia. Our battalion commander, Lt. Col. John T. Corley, was still in charge when we pulled back to Ansbach, south of Nuremberg.

Our battalion was charged to supervise German Schutzstaffel (S.S.) prisoners clearing rubble from the streets of Nuremberg. Sometime in July, Col. Corley assigned me to protect the Honorable Robert H. Jackson, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, who had been named by President Truman to be the Chief Prosecutor at the International Military Tribunal ("IMT"). For the first couple of weeks of the trial I still wore the insignia of the 1st Division, 26th Infantry, and was provided with a .45 caliber pistol. After the trials were underway I was to wear a plain, unidentified Army uniform and was provided with a .357 magnum snubnose handgun in a shoulder holster and an extendable blackjack. I was his only bodyguard.

That was fifty-nine years ago, when I was only twenty years old. Having seen the war on the front line, and now being assigned to be at the Palace of Justice for the highest ranking Nazis on trial, I appreciated the unusual privilege that the assignment as personal bodyguard...