A lawyer by profession, Fuchs joined the administration of the Congo Free State in 1888 as a jurist and quickly rose through the ranks.

Considered a Liberal, Fuchs's civilian background and attitudes distinguished him from the majority of colonial administrators who had begun their careers in the military.

Rising to the highest ranks of the administration in the late 1890s, Fuchs eventually became Governor-General after the Congo's annexation by Belgium and presided over the Congo's entry into World War I. Fuchs was born into a family of Prussian origin in Ixelles, Brussels in Belgium on 25 January 1858.

[1] By 1892, Fuchs had become Director-General of the Department of the Interior and, in 1893, State Inspector (Inspecteur d'état) and thus the deputy to the Congo's senior civil servant, the Governor-General.

He was replaced in the function by Eugène Henry in January 1916 but continued to hold an advisory post in the Ministry of the Colonies.