Mickey Marcus

David Daniel "Mickey" Marcus (22 February 1901 – 10 June 1948) was a United States Army colonel, later Israel's first General, who was a principal architect of the U.S. military's World War II civil affairs policies, including the organization of the war crimes trials in Germany and in Japan.

He attended Boys' High School, in Brooklyn, and was then accepted at West Point in 1920 and graduated with the class of 1924.

After completing his active duty requirement, he attended Brooklyn Law School.

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the 27th Division deployed to Hawaii.

There, Marcus organized and commanded a Ranger Combat Training School, to provide troop training in methods of unarmed defense to combat Japanese Infiltration tactics.

He spent most of the 1930s as an Assistant United States Attorney in New York, prosecuting gangsters such as Lucky Luciano.

In 1939, he joined the Judge Advocate General's Corps, and became Judge Advocate of his Army National Guard unit, the 27th Infantry Division, which was federalized in 1940.

In 1940, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia named Marcus Commissioner of the New York City Department of Correction for the City of New York.

After leaving active duty, Marcus had continued his army service in the Organized Reserve Corps.

Though as a legal officer, he was not supposed to command troops, he wrangled a unit command during the 1941 Louisiana Maneuvers.

But instead of a field command, Marcus was sent to Washington in 1943.

He was assigned to the Civil Affairs Division, as chief of planning for occupation governments in territories liberated from the Axis.

He accompanied U.S. delegations to the conferences at Cairo, Teheran, Yalta and Potsdam, and helped draft the 1943 surrender terms for Italy.

In May 1944, Marcus got himself sent to the United Kingdom on Civil Affairs business.

After V-E Day in 1945, General Lucius D. Clay asked for Marcus To serve on his staff in the occupation of Germany.

Marcus was in charge of providing for the millions of displaced persons in Germany.

Clay required all his subordinates to tour the Dachau concentration camp.

Marcus was shocked by its horrors; though not previously a Zionist, he began to think differently about a Jewish state.

In 1946, he was named chief of the Army's War Crimes Division in Washington, planning legal and security procedures for the Nuremberg trials and the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal.

He attended the Nuremberg trials, making sure that Nazi crimes were thoroughly documented.

After the trials, he was offered promotion to brigadier general, but instead elected to return to civilian life and his law practice.

In recognition of his service in "negotiation and drafting of the Italian Surrender Instrument, the Instrument of Unconditional Surrender of Germany, and the international machinery to be used for the control of Germany after her total defeat" he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal.

In 1946, he was named an honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire, ‘in recognition of the distinguished service performed … in cooperation with British armed forces during the war." He also was awarded the Bronze Star and other awards.

In 1947, David Ben-Gurion asked Marcus To recruit a U.S. officer to serve as military advisor to the nascent Israeli army, the Haganah.

He could not recruit anyone suitable, so Marcus volunteered himself.

He assisted Israel during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, one of the well known Israeli Machal soldiers, becoming Israel's first modern general (Hebrew: Aluf).

He was killed by friendly fire.

In 1948, the National Military Establishment informally acquiesced to Marcus' undertaking, provided he disguised his name and rank to avoid problems with the British authorities in Mandatory Palestine.

Under the nom de guerre "Michael Stone", he arrived in Palestine in January 1948.

Arab armies surrounded the soon-to-be declared State of Israel.

He designed a command and control structure for the Haganah, adapting his U.S. Army experience to its special needs.

He identified Israel's weakest points in the Negev south, and the Jerusalem area.

Marcus was appointed Aluf ("general") and given command of the Jerusalem front on May 28, 1948.

As no ranks had been granted to the Israeli high command at that time, he became the first general in the fledgling nation's army (see Israel Defense Forces).

He was portrayed by Kirk Douglas in the 1966 Hollywood movie Cast a Giant Shadow, which focused on his role in the Israeli war.

Marcus's Jewish parents, Mordechai Marcus and Leah Marcus (née Goldstein), came from Iași, Romania.

Born on Hester Street on Manhattan's Lower East Side, Marcus was bright and athletic.

He then traded on being a West Point classmate of General Maxwell D. Taylor to parachute into Normandy on D-Day with the first wave of Taylor's 101st Airborne Division, despite having no paratrooper training.

He took informal command of some of the scattered paratroopers and was in combat for a week.

He was then sent back to the United States.