Lore of the Corps: The Hesse Jewels Courts-Martial

Accused Hesse jewel thief David Watson, pictured far right, third row. (Credit: U.S. Army/National Archives)

Lore of the Corps

The Hesse Jewels Courts-Martial

The Rest of the Story

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By Mr. Fred L. Borch

The last “Lore of the Corps” in The Army Lawyer (Issue 1 2019) featured the infamous theft of the Hesse Jewels and a brief look at the follow-on courts-martial against Colonel (COL) Jack W. Durant, Captain (CPT) Kathleen B. Nash Durant,1 and Major (MAJ) David F. Watson. 2 All three were convicted at separate trials and all three were dismissed from the service and sentenced to terms of confinement at hard labor. Colonel Durant’s term of imprisonment was fourteen years; CPT Nash Durant and MAJ Watson were sentenced to five and three years, respectively.3 What happened after the three officers were convicted, however, is every bit as interesting as the crime itself, especially since President Dwight D. Eisenhower would ultimately grant a full and unconditional pardon to one of the three. What follows is the “rest of the story” surrounding the theft of Hesse family’s jewels.4

Kathleen (also known as “Katie” or “Vonie”) Nash Durant was the first to be tried. Her court-martial started in Frankfurt, Germany on 22 August 1946 and finished on 30 September 1946. She was convicted of “feloniously” taking, stealing, and carrying away, “in conjunction with” COL Durant and MAJ Watson, various jewels, gold, silver, and other “personal property” belonging to aristocratic members of the Hesse family, in violation of Article 93, Articles of War (AW). Nash Durant also was found guilty of being Absent Without Leave (AWOL) for three days, in violation of AW 61. This AWOL arose out of her refusal to report to Fort Sheridan, Illinois, after her terminal leave orders were revoked by the Army.5

After the reviewing authority took action in her case, a Board of Review consisting of three judge advocate colonels examined the record of trial for legal sufficiency.6 On appeal, CPT Nash Durant raised a multitude of errors, but her principal claim was that the Army had no court-martial jurisdiction over her because she was on “terminal leave status” and was honorably discharged on 30 May 1946. Nash Durant insisted that the Secretary of War’s order to revoke these orders and return her to active duty was a nullity and that she had been discharged. The Board rejected this claim, finding that her terminal leave status had been revoked on 24 May and that she knew it had been revoked when The Adjutant General notified her by telegram that she must report for duty at Fort Sheridan. After rejecting Nash Durant’s other assignments of error,7 the Board recommended to The Judge Advocate General (TJAG) that he advise the Secretary of War to affirm the results in her case; the Secretary did so on 27 March 1947.8

No sooner did Nash Durant begin serving her five year prison sentence at the Federal Reformatory for Women at Anderson, West Virginia, however, than she began a collateral attack on her conviction with a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the nearby U.S. District. No doubt the U.S. Attorney responding to Nash Durant’s petition was surprised when her counsel persuaded the judge that Nash Durant had been wrongly convicted and must be released from custody.

The District Court not only found that the Army had no in personam jurisdiction over Nash Durant, but he concluded that such jurisdiction had terminated over her on 9 March 1946, the date that Nash Durant was placed on terminal leave. Consequently, the judge ordered Nash’s release and she left the Federal prison on 10 September 1947.

The government appealed. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed, holding the U.S. District Court judge had erred. The Court of Appeals determined that that Nash was “definitely on active duty” at the time of her court-martial. In Hironimus v. Durant, the petition for writ of habeas corpus was reversed and Nash was sent back to prison.9 The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review her case in October 1948.10

Born in October 1902, Nash Durant was forty-two years old, divorced, and was working as an assistant manager at the Phoenix Country Club, Phoenix, Arizona, when she lied about her age and joined the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) in February 1943; she claimed to be thirty-two years old. When the WAAC became the Women’s Army Corps (WAC), Nash commissioned as a WAC first lieutenant, was subsequently promoted to captain in September 1944, and served in Europe after the cessation of hostilities.11 While Nash Durant was on terminal leave, she and COL Jack Durant married on 28 May 1946. When they were apprehended at 0200 on 3 June, the Durants were in the bridal suite of a Chicago hotel.

After serving her sentence in West Virginia—and probably while Jack Durant was still serving his fourteen year sentence to confinement—the couple divorced. Nash Durant then apparently moved back home to Arizona, where she died in April 1972, at the age of sixty-nine.

The second accused to face a court-martial panel was MAJ David Watson. His trial opened in Frankfurt on 15 October 1946, and finished two weeks later. Watson had been charged with larceny of the Hesse family jewels, gold, silver, and other property, but was found not guilty of that charge. This acquittal most likely occurred because the evidence presented at trial was that COL Durant and CPT Nash Durant had done the actual stealing from the cellar of Schloss Friedrichshof.12 Watson was, however, found guilty of conspiracy under Article 96, AW, in that he had conspired with Durant and Nash Durant to receive and transport numerous items of jewelry and other property, then knowing them to be stolen. The court-martial panel sentenced Watson to be dismissed from the service, to forfeit all pay and allowances, and to be confined at hard labor for three years.13

Watson receiving his Bronze Star Medal from General Eisenhower. Watson was awarded the medal prior to his involvement in the Hesse case. (Credit: U.S. Army/National Archives)

Watson’s fine military record was now wrecked. This was a shame, as he had performed well as an officer in the Quartermaster Branch. He had gone from lieutenant to major in three years, and had been personally decorated with the Bronze Star Medal by General Dwight D. Eisenhower while serving at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Forces Europe. Watson had also been decorated by Belgium, France, and the Soviet Union, which was unusual for an officer of his rank; he had received the Soviet Medal for Battle Merit, the Belgian Croix de Guerre, and the French Croix de Guerre.14 No doubt hoping to salvage something from his career as a commissioned officer, Watson now began soliciting statements from his fellow officers, friends, and acquaintances attesting to his good character.

Watson seems to have told those persons writing statements that he had been found not guilty of stealing the jewels and other treasures—which was certainly true—and that his involvement with Durant and Durant Nash in selling some jewels, gold, and silver grew out of his genuine belief that the loot, having belonged either to Nazis or members of the SS, would never be returned to them and consequently was “war booty.”15 As such, the jewels, gold, silver and other Hesse family property lawfully belonged to Durant and Nash Durant. Watson had argued at trial—and he certainly told his friends and colleagues—that he lacked the requisite mens rea to be found guilty. In Watson’s view, this was because “. . . other persons had committed offenses against enemy property for which they had not been tried and by doing only what other people were doing with impunity [he] was following precedent and therefore he was acting without a guilty mind.”16 While this novel argument might have persuaded those who wrote letters attesting to Watson’s good character, the argument had no basis in criminal law: the fact that certain criminal conduct prevails in a community or neighborhood does not create a defense to a prosecution for such crimes.

Watson also suggested that he had been swept along in the entire affair because of the undue influence of a senior ranking officer, in this case COL Durant. While it seems unlikely that the thirty-three year old Watson could have been persuaded to go along with Durant and Nash Durant’s scheme because of undue influence, it is true that Watson worked for Durant and that his promotion to major was the result of Durant’s recommendation.17 Pure greed, however, was the mostly likely motive for Watson’s criminal conduct.

Ultimately, Watson gathered together more than 275 letters from military personnel and civilian colleagues, all of which either urged clemency or else attested to Watson’s good character, or both. Some of these letters were from prominent politicians, including members of the House of Representatives and Senate. All of these letters were submitted to the Board of Review examining the record of trial in Watson’s case, and the Board did consider these matters. The Board members also recognized that all the members of the court-martial that had heard the evidence against Watson also recommended clemency (but only as to the sentence, not the findings).18

The same three judge advocate colonels who sat on the Board of Review in Katie Nash Durant’s case also carefully examined Watson’s assignments of error, and considered the matters submitted in his request for clemency. But the Board declined to recommend clemency and instead advised TJAG to recommend to the Secretary of War to confirm the results in United States v. Watson. The Secretary did so on 23 July 1947.19 Watson was imprisoned at the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks located at Fort Hancock, New Jersey. He was paroled on 19 December 1947, and returned to California.

In the meantime, he had retained the services of Smith W. Brookhart, a Washington D.C. attorney, to handle his case. After the decision of the Board of Review and action by the Secretary of War, Brookhart advised Watson in a 30 August 1948 letter that he had two courses of action. First, although he had been dismissed from the service, Watson could “request restoration to duty as an EM [Enlisted Man] to serve two years and receive an honorable discharge,” assuming that this term of service was honorable. Brookhart counseled that such a restoration request could be made as long as Watson was still in a parole status—which he was—but Brookhart also wrote that it was unlikely that such a request would be granted.20

On 24 December 1948, David Watson received official notice that his parole was at an end: having completed his sentence to confinement and having complied with the requirements for parole, he was “hereby released and set at liberty.”21 At this point, David Watson could have tried a collateral attack on his conviction. Since Katie Nash Durant had been unsuccessful in her petition for a writ of habeas corpus, this course of action was unlikely to succeed for Watson. In fact, Watson apparently never attempted an attack on his conviction in U.S. District Court, but he did have one more avenue to clear his name and reverse his court-martial conviction: a presidential pardon.

Smith Brookhart had advised Watson that no application for a pardon would be considered by the White House “until a person has had at least three years freedom after parole.”22 The result was that, starting in 1952, David Watson began gathering together letters from friends, colleagues, politicians, business and community leaders who would vouch for his good character. Watson had worked as a manager for Safeway Stores, the large retail grocery chain, prior to entering the Army in 1942, and he returned to retail management work after his release from prison.

Then Captain Watson’s ID card from 1945. (Credit: U.S. Army/National Archives)

Ultimately, Watson provided his lawyer with many sworn affidavits expressing the conviction that Watson had been conducting himself in “a moral and law abiding manner.” These “character affidavits” all requested that Watson receive a Presidential pardon that would “restore his full civil rights.” Lawrence Giles, a management consultant from Laguna Beach, California, for example, wrote that he had known Watson for more than twenty-seven years and that he had “seen the applicant [Watson] on many occasions.” Giles was “sure” that Watson had never been in any trouble since his release from prison.23

Arthur Stewart, the Controller and Director of Safeway Stores wrote that he had known Watson more than twenty years, and that he had frequent contact with Watson in the latter’s capacity as Vice President and General Manager of Handyspot Company of Northern California. According to Stewart, Watson was overseeing the delivery of toiletries and cosmetics to more than 170 grocery stores, and was a highly respected member of the community. Stewart wrote that he was “intimately acquainted with Mr. Watson’s family,” and that Watson and his wife Barbara were “well thought of by neighbors and friends, and wish to adopt some children as soon as this can be done.”24

Watson submitted his petition for a presidential pardon in late 1952, and received a note from his attorney—still Smith Brookhart—in January 1953 that the petition had been received at the Department of Justice (DOJ) and that the Federal Bureau of Investigation would now investigate the case.25 Six months later, in July 1953, Watson received bad news: the Army objected to any pardon for him. According to Smith Brookhart, Major General Ernest M. Brannon, then serving as TJAG, refused to reconsider his decision to oppose the pardon.26

As the saying goes, “persistence wins the prize,” and David Watson did not give up. He now enlisted the support of his local member of congress, J. Arthur Younger. Younger contacted the Army about its opposition to Watson’s pardon and was informed in January 1954 that the Army would “consider again” its view on the matter.27 But there still was no good news: on 17 February 1954, the DOJ informed Watson that, because the Army continued to oppose his request for a pardon, it would take no further action on his behalf.28

Over the next few years, as the result of telephone calls and correspondence, Congressman Younger persuaded the Army to alter its view on Watson’s pardon petition. While the Army continued to maintain that Watson’s trial had been just and his sentence fair, the Army now notified Watson in April 1956 that it would no longer “interpose any objection” if the DOJ wanted to process Watson’s petition. In short, the Army declined to make a favorable recommendation on Watson’s petition, but it would not stand in the way of its processing by the Office of the Pardon Attorney.29

President Eisenhower’s pardon of Watston. (Credit: U.S. Army/National Archives)

The absence of a positive recommendation from the Army did not affect the merits of the petition, as reflected by the results: on 31 July 1957, President Dwight David Eisenhower granted David F. Watson “a full and unconditional pardon.”30 It was an amazing end to a long and convoluted process.

A short biographical note on Watson. Born 4 December 1912, he graduated from Pomona College in 1934. After his release from the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks in 1947, Watson lived in Piedmont, California. After retiring as President and General Manager of Handyspot Company in 1973, Watson and his wife opened a Hallmark Gift and Card shop, which they owned until 1976. Later, the couple managed a retail jewelry store in California.

Jack Durant was the last of the three officers to be tried. The Army certainly viewed him as the most culpable of the three accuseds, given his rank and position. Durant’s trial began in Frankfurt, Germany, on 11 December 1946 and finished on 30 April 1947. After the reviewing authority took action in COL Durant’s case, the Board of Review examined the court-martial for legal sufficiency.

Durant had been convicted, “in conjunction with” CPT Nash Durant and MAJ Watson of “felonious” larceny of “goods, chattels, and items of personal property . . . of a total value of more than one million dollars ($1,000,000.00), the property of Prince Wolfgang of Hesse. The charge sheet listed more than 250 items, including gold, silver and platinum necklaces, bracelets and ring. Also listed were various precious jewels, including diamonds, emeralds, sapphires, pearls, moonstones, and rubies.

Durant also was convicted of “unlawfully” agreeing and conspiring with Nash Durant and Watson to “steal, embezzle, convert to their own use, transport and dispose of” more than $1.5 million worth of “goods, chattel, and items of personal property” belonging to Prince Wolfgang and other family members of the House of Hesse. The conspiracy specification explained in great detail how the three officers had broken and dismantled jewelry, mutilated settings and fittings to remove precious stones, and then shipped the jewels back to the United States with the intent to sell them there later.31

Just as he had at his trial in Frankfurt, COL Durant did not contest the merits of the case. On the contrary, he argued to the Board of Review that his conviction was invalid because the court-martial had no in personam jurisdiction over him. Durant’s argument was identical to the argument made by his wife, Katie Nash Durant: that because he had been on terminal leave since 17 May 1946 and had orders that would automatically release him from active duty on 23 July 1946, the Army’s attempt to revoke his terminal leave orders and order him to report to Fort Sheridan was unlawful.

The Board of Review rejected this jurisdiction argument, finding that the Army had properly revoked COL Durant’s terminal leave orders. On 7 November 1947, the three judge advocate colonels examining the case published an eighty page, single-spaced, typewritten opinion in which they affirmed the findings (with only minor exceptions) and the sentence.32

No doubt following the earlier lead of his wife, Jack Durant now challenged the legality of his court-martial conviction by filing a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the U.S. District Court for Northern District of Georgia. Although Durant raised a number of errors, his chief complaint was that the Army lacked in personam jurisdiction over him for the reasons he had raised at trial and at the Board of Review.

Jack Durant must have been disappointed, but perhaps not too surprised, when the District Court found that “the court-martial was legally constituted” and that Durant had not been denied due process of law. The court specifically found that the court-martial had jurisdiction over Durant and that his sentence to fourteen years confinement at hard labor was “within the limits permitted by law.”33 Consequently, the judge dismissed Durant’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus and ordered him to be returned to prison.

Some biographical details on Jack Durant: Born in Decatur, Illinois on 25 September 1909, he received a B.A. from the University of Illinois in 1931. Durant worked as a statistical clerk in the U.S. Department of Labor from 1934 to 1937, after which he worked as a fiscal clerk in the Department of the Interior. While he was working in Washington, D.C., Jack Durant attended American University and Georgetown University and received an LL.B. from Georgetown in 1941. He passed the bar and was admitted to practice in the District of Columbia. No doubt the court-martial panel hearing the case against Jack Durant must have been surprised to learn that the law-breaking accused before them was a licensed attorney.

Durant had been a member of the Reserve Officer’s Training Corps while in high school and college and, upon graduation from the University of Illinois, was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Cavalry Reserve. He was ordered to active duty with the Army Air Corps in 1940, and was exclusively involved in personnel work between 1940 and 1945. Durant was an outstanding performer; he was promoted to major in February 1942, lieutenant colonel in September 1942, and colonel in November 1944. He finished out the war with the ribbons of the Legion of Merit, Bronze Star Medal, and various campaign medals on his chest.34

As for his personal life, Durant had married Elvera Duller in 1930, and had two sons with her. He divorced her in 1944 and married then CPT Nash in May 1946. Their marriage was short lived. Jack Wybrant Durant died in Miami-Dade County, Florida, on 19 December 1984 at the age of seventy-five.

Two final notes about the Hesse jewels heist. Then Lieutenant Colonel Joseph S. Robinson had been one of the prosecutors in the proceedings against Jack Durant. As a result of his connection with the case, the members of the Hesse family hired him—after Robinson’s discharge from active duty and his return to civilian life—to help them recover the jewels, which were still in the custody of the United States. Along with another recently discharged Army colleague, Robinson had opened a civilian law office in Frankfurt, and consequently had close contact with Hesse family. In 1951, as a result of Robinson’s efforts, about $600,000 worth of jewels were flown to Germany. The seventy-nine year old Countess of Hesse, Princess Margarethe of Hollenzollern, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria, and a sister of Kaiser Wilhelm II, took custody of the jewels at the U.S. Consulate in Frankfurt.35

There also was a civil suit involving the crime. Jack Durant had mailed some of the stolen goods to his brother, James E. Durant, who lived in Falls Church, Virginia. A subsequent search of a “wooded spot on the Leesburg Pike near Falls Church” resulted in the recovery of $28,000 in U.S. currency, which had been buried in a glass jar.36 The Hesse family sued for the return of the money in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. They ultimately prevailed, but not before ex-CPT Glenn V. Brumbaugh, who had represented Jack Durant as his defense counsel in his court-martial, filed a claim for the money. Brumbaugh insisted that the $28,000 had been promised to him “as payment for legal services beyond customary representation at the colonel’s court-martial.” United States District Court Judge Albert V. Bryan rejected Brumbaugh’s claim and ordered the moneys and property returned to the Hesse family.37

And so ends the saga of the Hesse jewels and Jack W. Durant, Katie B. Nash Durant, and David F. Watson—except that a large part of the Hesse treasure was never found and no one knows what happened to the remainder of the loot, now worth millions of dollars. Truth is stranger than fiction. TAL

 

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Mr. Borch is the Regimental Historian & Archivist

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Notes

1. While they had not been married at the time of the crime, COL Durant and CPT Nash Durant subsequently married in Chicago in May 1946, just days before they were apprehended by the military police and sent back to Germany for trial.

2. The author thanks MAJ David A. Brown, U.S. Army (Retired), Attorney-at-Law, Walnut Creek, California, for providing extensive information about David Watson’s life after his trial by court-martial.

3. Although the officer panel sentenced Durant to fifteen years, the reviewing authority reduced the confinement to fourteen years because Durant had spent a year in confinement prior to the completion of his trial. United States v. Durant, CM 324235, 73 BMR 49, 130 (1947).

4. With a “tip of the hat” to conservative talk show host Paul Harvey, whose “The Rest of the Story” was a Monday-through-Friday radio program that aired from 1976 until Harvey’s death in 2009. Each broadcast ended with the phrase, “And now you know the rest of the story.” Paul Harvey, http://www.paulharvey.com/ (last visited Nov. 21, 2018); Paul Harvey, Talk-Radio Pioneer, Dead at 90, N.Y. Times, Feb. 28, 2009, at A18.

5. United States v. Nash Durant, CM 317327, 66 BMR 277, 279-80 (1947). Article 93 was the forerunner of Article 121, Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). Article 63 was the antecedent of Article 86, UCMJ. Both AW provisions are essentially the same as their UCMJ counterparts. The facts supporting the Article 63 offense were that both CPT Nash Durant and COL Durant were on terminal leave orders when the Army decided to court-martial them for stealing Hesse family property. Since their terminal leave orders ultimately would have automatically discharged them from active duty, the Army revoked these orders and ordered the two officers to report for duty. Both declined to obey these orders, which resulted in the AWOL charge against CPT Nash Durant.

6. The three Board of Review members were COLs Chester D. Silvers, Carlos E. McAfee, and Gilbert G. Ackroyd. McAfee had spent all of World War II in a prisoner of war camp after being captured by the Japanese in the Philippines in March 1942. McAfee was one of only two judge advocates to be decorated with the Silver Star in World War II; he was cited for gallantry in action during the defense of Bataan. Department of the Army, General Orders No. 27 (30 Dec. 1947).

7. For example, Nash Durant claimed that “confessions” she had made when apprehended by the military police were the product of “undue pressure” and therefore inadmissible. She also claimed that the seizure of jewels and other personal property by the military police from her sister’s home in Hudson, Wisconsin was an “unlawful search and seizure.” The Board rejected both claimed errors. Nash Durant, 66 BMR at 300–02.

8. War Department, General Court-Martial Order 110 (27 Mar. 1947).

9. Hironimus v. Durant, 168 F.2d 288 (4th Cir. 1948).

10. Mrs. Durant Denied High Court Review of Gem Conviction, Evening Star (Washington), Oct. 11, 1948, A4.

11. Nash Durant, 66 BMR at 315.

12. Schloss Friedrichshof was also known as “Kronberg Castle” and the two names are used interchangeably in the records of trial of the three courts-martial. The connection is that Schloss (or Castle) Friedichshof is located near the town of Kronberg, Germany.

13. United States v. Watson, CM 319747, 69 BMR 47 (1947).

14. War Department, Adjutant General’s Office Form 53-99, Military Record and Report of Separation / Discharge from the Army of the United States, David F. Watson (28 July. 1947).

15. The Judge Advocate General’s Corps, The Army Lawyer 172 (1975).

16. Watson, 69 BMR at 62.

17. Colonel Durant was the executive officer to the G-1, U.S. Forces, European Theater, and Watson was Durant’s assistant. Watson, 69 BMR at 61.

18. The panel members cited various reasons for recommending clemency on sentencing. Colonel Victor W. B. Wales, for example, wrote that Watson deserved clemency because he “is not believed to be a criminal character” and that he “probably was laboring under considerable pressure through his immediate military supervisor [COL Jack Durant].” Similarly, COLs Harold J. Baum and John R. Knittel supported clemency because of Watson’s “limited participation . . . in the offenses charged.” Interestingly, the law member, COL Nathan J. Roberts, JAGD, supported clemency for Watson because he believed “that the accused is not of a criminal character but that his offense was largely an outgrowth of poor judgment.” Appendix C, Brief for the Accused Before Board of Review No. 2, United States v. Watson, CM 319747, 69 BMR 47 (1947) (on file with author).

19. War Department, General Court Martial Order 255 (23 July 1947).

20. Letter, Smith W. Brookhart to David F. Watson (Aug. 30, 1948) (on file with author).

21. Department of the Army, Adjutant Generals’ Office Form 01124, 1 Oct 1948, U.S. Disciplinary Barracks, Certificate of Release from Parole, David F. Watson (24 Dec.1948).

22. Letter, Brookhart to Watson, supra note 20.

23. Character Affidavit from Lawrence Giles, for David F. Watson (Feb. 1953) (on file with author).

24. Character Affidavit from Arthur Stewart, for David F. Watson (March 7, 1953) (on file with author).

25. Letter, Smith Brookhart to David Watson (Jan. 10, 1953) (on file with author).

26. Letter, Smith Brookhart to David Watson (July 9, 1953) (on file with author).

27. Letter, COL John P. Maher to Representative J. Arthur Younger (Jan. 18, 1954) (on file with author).

28. Letter, Daniel M. Lyons, Pardon Attorney, Department of Justice, to David F. Watson (Feb. 17, 1957) (on file with author).

29. Letter, Franklin G. Floete, General Services Administration, to David F. Watson (Apr. 7, 1956) (on file with author).

30. Presidential Pardon, Dwight David Eisenhower (on file with author).

31. The evidence at trial was that COL Durant had “mailed twenty or thirty packages” containing these stolen jewels to his brother in Falls Church, Virginia. Captain Nash Durant had likewise mailed packages to her sister in Hudson, Wisconsin. After returning to the United States in early 1946, the Durants in fact did sell some jewels in Washington, D.C. Other jewels and a small quantity of gold, however, were taken by MAJ Watson to Belfast, Northern Ireland, and sold to the owner of a pawn shop. Durant, 73 BMR at 75–6.

32. The three colonels were Abner Lipscomb, H. Johnson, and Gilbert Ackroyd. Ackroyd had also been a member of the Boards of Review that examined the Nash Durant and Watson records of trial. Id. at 49.

33. Durant v. Hiatt, 81 F. Supp. 948, 957 (N. D. Ga. 1948).

34. Durant, 73 BMR at 127.

35. Born in 1906 in Maple Hill, New York, Robinson graduated from Fordham University’s law school in 1927, when he was twenty-one years old. He enlisted in 1941 as a private in the Army Air Corps and, after graduating from the 11th Officer Course at The Judge Advocate General’s School at the University of Michigan, joined the JAG Corps. Student and Faculty Directory, The Judge Advocate General’s School at 40 (1946).When he was released from active duty in 1946, he was a lieutenant colonel. Robinson practiced law in Frankfurt from 1946 until 1954, when he returned to New York. He maintained a general practice of law in Manhattan until he retired in 1988. Robinson died in February 1996, aged eighty-nine. Joseph S. Robinson, 89, Lawyer Noted for Roles in War Cases, N.Y. Times, Feb. 27, 1996, at B7.

36. Durant, 73 BMR at 97.

37. Wolfgang, Prinz von Hessen et al v. Brucker et al, Civil Action No. 1111, U.S.D.C. (E.D. Va.), Nov. 1955; 28,000 Found in Cache Awarded to Hesse Family, Wash. (DC) Star, Sept. 28, 1956, A1.