In 1945, while Katherine Fite worked as an Assistant to the Legal Advisor in the State Department, her supervisor recommended her for a temporary assignment as an assistant to Justice Robert H. Jackson with the Office of the United States Chief of Counsel for the Prosecution of Axis Criminality—what would become the Nuremberg War Crime Trials.
Katherine graduated from Vassar College in 1926 and received her law degree from Yale in 1930. Before coming to the State Department in 1937, she worked as an attorney with the General Claims Commission. She received her assignment to work with Justice Jackson in July 1945 and traveled to London to meet with him while he attended the London Conference, which aimed to establish procedures for the war crimes trials. From there, she traveled to Nuremberg, where Katherine assisted in the preparation of evidence and arguments for the trial of the Major War Criminals.
While in London and Nuremberg, Katherine wrote vividly descriptive letters to her parents, which she later donated to the Truman Library. She describes her excitement and trepidation about flying for the first time, getting the opportunity to meet important people, and participating in and witnessing firsthand such an historic event. She also describes the less glamorous side of life in postwar Europe—seeing the concentration camps, the destruction of Germany, people trying to rebuild their lives, and interviewing Hitler’s accomplices.
Prior to the beginning of the Nuremberg War Crime Trials, the Four Powers (France, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States) met in London to plan strategy and procedure for the trial. Near the end of July, a group from the meeting went to Nuremberg to inspect the trial site. Katherine is the only woman in this picture and one of only two women who went, the other being Justice Robert Jackson’s secretary. Justice Jackson is likely the man fourth from the right in the bow tie.
The Army issued this ration card to Katherine Fite while she worked in London before going to Nuremberg to begin working on the trial. In one of her letters to her parents, Katherine notes, “[t]he Army runs a vast socialist organization. You go to the PX with a ration card and buy what they have, not what you want. Never the same brand of toothpaste, but that keeps you from getting in a rut.”