Jenő Fuchs

Jenő Fuchs was the best sabre fencer before World War I, winning both the individual and team sabre golds at the 1908 and 1912 Olympics. Fuchs, who rarely competed, barely made the 1908 Hungarian Olympic team by finishing eighth and securing the last place at the 1908 Hungarian Olympic trials, but at the Olympics, Fuchs won the gold medal with ease, losing only 2 of 22 bouts, and then led the Hungarian team to a gold medal in the team competition.

After the 1908 Olympics, Fuchs stopped competing, instead concentrating on his law studies, graduating from the University of Budapest (now Eötvös Loránd University) with a doctor of law degree in 1911. He returned to fencing in 1912 and defended his Olympic individual sabre title with ease, winning 9 bouts, losing two and drawing one. Fuchs won his fourth Olympic gold in the 1912 team sabre event.

Fuchs missed the 1920 Olympics as Hungary was not invited to the games as an aggressor nation in World War I, but he made the Hungarian 1924 Olympic team, although he did not compete, giving a younger teammate a chance. Fuchs also tried to make the 1928 Hungarian Olympic team, but past his prime, did not make it. Besides fencing, Fuchs was also known as a top ranked rower and bobsledder in Hungary.

Fuchs ran his own attorney’s office and also worked with the Budapest stock market during World War II, for which he was considered indispensable. In 1944, however, he was forced to leave that job because of his Jewish ethnicity, after which the stock market crashed, and Fuchs survived to the end of the war in a Budapest ghetto.

In February 1945 Fuchs was commissioned to create conditions to resume trading on the stock market. He was elected as Secretary-General of the Budapest Stock Exchange and successfully revived Hungarian stock trading. He continued in that activity until 1948 when the Soviets terminated the stock exchange.