Dubonnet v. Marshall, Civ. A. No. 1859.

• Decision Date: 25 October 1948
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 1859.
• Citation: 80 F. Supp. 905
• Parties: DUBONNET v. MARSHALL, Secretary of State.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Columbia

80 F. Supp. 905

DUBONNET v. MARSHALL, Secretary of State.

Civ. A. No. 1859.

United States District Court District of Columbia.

June 11, 1948.

As Amended October 25, 1948.

Motion for Denied October 25, 1948.

William P. MacCracken, of Washington, D. C., for plaintiff.

George M. Fay, U. S. Atty., of Washington, D. C., for defendant.

Motion for New Trial Denied October 25, 1948.

BAILEY, District Judge.

Plaintiff, in this case, brought this suit for a declaratory judgment to the effect that she is a National of the United States and to require the defendant to cancel a Certificate of the Loss by her of the Nationality of the United States. She was a native-born citizen of the United States, but is now the wife of a French citizen, her third husband, the preceding two husbands having also been Frenchmen. She has lived in France a good many years, but claims that during the recent World War she was engaged in transporting French and English prisoners of war from the German prison-of-war camps to hospitals in Paris, and rendered other humanitarian services; that when the relations between the United States and Germany became strained, she obtained false French identity cards in order to permit her to carry on her activities in the event of a declaration of war between Germany and the United States; that after that declaration of war she continued her activities under the guise of a French national, although, she claims, that she had not applied for French nationality, had not taken any oath of allegiance to France but regarded herself as a loyal American citizen; that she posed as a French national to deceive the Germans in order to continue her humanitarian services, but was denounced by the German Gestapo as being an American national with false French identity; that she was warned by the French police that unless she accepted the protection, which the French citizenship would afford her, that she would be taken into custody by the Gestapo and either sent to one of the concentration camps or might be executed; that believing her life was in danger and that her humanitarian activities might terminate, that the only way to protect her own life and to continue the humanitarian activities was to accept French nationality. She made application for French nationality and it was granted to her in recognition of the services which she had rendered to the French people. She claims, however, that she did not intend to renounce her United States nationality but...