Sleeping with the Enemy: Coco Chanel’s Secret War
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36. He was tracked: CHADAT 7NN 2719.
37. “The Germans are by no means”: BNA, letter on British Embassy Berlin letter paper, dated January 3, 1935.
38. The editors revealed: Wistrich, Who’s Who in Nazi Germany, p. 38.
39. Allard’s postwar book: Quand Hitler espionne la France, pp. 38–50.
40. The newly single Dincklage: Ledebur report, FSS. Ledebur named the two girls “the Joyce sisters.”
41. The letter makes a feeble attempt: German Foreign Ministry Archives, 1934.
42. “To the Honorable Ambassador”: Ibid.
43. Prior to Dincklage’s: CHADAT 7NN 2973. While photos of Dincklage and Lucie Braun were mentioned as attached, only the latter photo remains in the file.
44. “I fear I shall not”: Telegram dated December 2, 1935, Chartwell Trust.
45. His former agent in Toulon: CHADAT 7NN 2973.
46. By November 1938: Ibid.
47. A French agent in Bayonne: Ibid. Aga Baltic was a Swedish manufacturer of a Superhetterodyne radio receiver made in 1938. “Le Grand Livre de la TSF” (old radios), http://www.doctsf.com/grandlivre/index.php.
48. The report continues: Ibid.
49. “Even if no direct proof exists”: Ibid. Signed Le Capitan Adjoint, Paillole. Paul Paillole was “one of the best-known figures of wartime French counter espionage, a senior intelligence officer for the Free French and a leading member of the French Resistance.” Douglas Porch, The French Secret Services: From the Dreyfus Affair to the Gulf War, p. 44. The occupation of France by the Germans froze expulsion measures against Germans. It took until 1947 for the French to legally expel Hans Günther von Dincklage and wife Maximiliane.
50. And what of Catsy?: CHADAT 7NN 2973.
51. “He is seen in Toulon”: Ibid. The report then lists seven license plate numbers, including German, Italian, and British ones. Dincklage’s own automobile was registered in Monaco. The report does not give the type of automobile that Dincklage was driving.
52. Finally, French authorities: Dessoffy’s full name was Countess Dessoffy de Czerneck et Tarko, née Bonneau du Chesne de Beauregard. CHADAT 7NN 2650.
53. The Deuxième Bureau now: CHADAT 7NN 2973.
54. French counterintelligence services: Ibid.
55. The report is a summary: Ibid.
56. In December of that year: Ibid.
57. Months before the Nazi: SSF file, “Dincklage.” With the German occupation of France, Maximiliane von Dincklage was one of many German nationals released from the Gurs camp. She would live in occupied Paris during the war. Her family incorrectly believed that as a Jew she might have been obliged to wear a yellow Star of David sewn on her clothing. Schoenebeck family interview by research assistant Sally Gordon-Marks, Hinterstoder, Austria, July 3, 2009.
58. When questioned about Dincklage: Marcel Haedrich, Coco Chanel: Her Life, Her Secrets, p. 148.
59. Her grand-niece, Gabrielle Palasse Labrunie, who knew Dincklage well: Gabrielle Palasse Labrunie, interview with author, May 18, 2009.
60. Among them: Pierre Lazareff, Deadline: The Behind the Scenes Story of the Last Decade in France, trans. by David Partridge, n.d., p. 110.
61. Pierre Lazareff: Known as “Pierre in suspenders,” Lazareff was a giant of the French press ca. 1931: editor of Paris-Soir; later, founder of France-Soir (2 million copies sold in 1970); and a television personality.
62. Abetz assured his listeners: Lazareff, Deadline: The Behind the Scenes Story of the Last Decade in France, pp. 100, 111, 117.
CHAPTER SIX: AND THEN THE WAR CAME
1. “Medieval children playing”: Pablo Picasso, New York Review of Books, Nov. 25–Dec. 8, 2010, p. 27.
2. Paris Herald newsman: Shirer, Berlin Diary, pp. 6–8.
3. By June, the Ritz boutiques: Roulet, Ritz: A Story That Outshines the Legend, p. 99.
4. Chanel’s salesgirls: Edmonde Charles-Roux, L’Irrégulière, p. 524.
5. “The first time I saw”: Gabrielle Palasse Labrunie, telephone interview with author, April 28, 2009.
6. It was a French version: Charles-Roux, Chanel, p. 298.
7. The keystone to peace: Gabrielle Palasse Labrunie, interview with author, Yermenonville, France, April, 27, 2009; Leslie Field, Bendor, the Golden Duke of Westminster, p. 262.
8. “because two gentlemen”: Wallach, Chanel: Her Style and Her Life, p. 19.
9. she “enraged” her: Ibid., p. 112.
10. “Chanel is finished”: Galante, Mademoiselle Chanel, p. 169.
11. swathing the performers: Charles-Roux, Chanel, p. 304.
12. Cocteau remembered: Madsen, Chanel: A Woman of Her Own, p. 220.
13. British Vogue: Ibid., p. 221.
14. The Chanel collection: Charles-Roux, Chanel, p. 302.
15. Clare Boothe Luce: Clare Boothe Luce, Europe in the Spring, pp. 61, 63, 126.
16. It was payback: Charles-Roux: Chanel, p. 305.
17. “How could I suppose”: Haedrich, Coco Chanel: Her Life, Her Secrets, p. 142.
18. His anti-Semitism: Edmonde Charles-Roux, interviewed by the author, Paris, April 21, 2009.
19. Chanel’s ex-lover: Field, Bendor, the Golden Duke of Westminster, p. 265.
20. They believed she was a British agent: ADGMD, personal records, Lombardi, Alberto, No. B728.
21. Italian archives tell: Archivio centrale dello Stato (ACS), handwritten letter to the Justice Minister from Lombardi concerning his wife, Vera Bate: timbro della SPD 12.8.41, data in alto 23.8.41, n. 111684 A4-24.8.41.
22. “Mrs. Lombardi”: ACS, Ministry of Interior, Envelope 216, Vera Lombardi report.
23. One week later: Ibid.
24. From the time he was mobilized: Gabrielle Palasse Labrunie, interview with author, Yermenonville, France, April, 27, 2009.
25. “Oh, Iribe!”: Galante, Mademoiselle Chanel, p. 141.
26. “There is nothing worse than solitude”: Ibid.
27. “I’ve closed the business”: Charles-Roux, L’Irrégulière, pp. 536–37; my translation.
28. “war was a time to hide”: Ibid., p. 535.
29. They were furious: Ibid., pp. 533–34.
30. What would Paris wartime: Ibid., p. 534.
31. “Life is about combat: Paul Morand, L’Allure de Chanel, p. 206; my translation.
32. “In spite of repeated denials”: The article, “Gems of Far East Blend With Gowns,” by Kathleen Cannell, did not appear in the New York Times until May 6, 1940.
33. He knowingly assured: Gidel, Coco Chanel, pp. 292–93.
34. The reports amused: Ibid., p. 302.
35. During one such alert, Coward: Claude Roulet, Ritz: A Story That Outshines the Legend, pp. 106–7.
36. Most French families: “Half-Year Mark,” Time, March 11, 1940.
37. It was worse: “GERMANY: To Paris,” Time, May 20, 1940, p. 32.
38. A million and a half men: Ousby, Occupation, p. 6. Vividly put: had the French war dead of 1914–1918 risen up and marched at an ordinary pace through the Arc de Triomphe, it would have taken eleven days and eleven nights for them to pass through.
39. “What they do with this information”: Ousby, Occupation, p. 22.
40. A few men: Ibid., p. 14.
41. The French generals: Michael Bloch, The Secret File of the Duke of Windsor: The Private Papers 1937–1972, p. 149.
42. Winston Churchill visited: Roulet, Ritz: A Story That Outshines the Legend, pp. 103–4.
43. “Hitler and his cohorts”: A.P.H. in Punch, London, February 14, 1940, as cited in Luce, Europe in the Spring, Preface.
44. “Last week long-dreaded World War II”: “Half-Year Mark,” Time, March 11, 1940.
45. They abandoned their mistress: Roulet, Ritz: A Story That Outshines the Legend, p. 109.
46. While Europe held its breath: Swiss National Archives N7811B.A.6.
47. Driving a Fiat Topolino: Ibid. License plate no. L 878995.
48. But French counterintelligence: CHADAT 7NN 2650.
50. had become Dincklage’s witness: CHADAT 7NN 2650.
51. Edmonde Charles-Roux recalled: Edmonde Charles-Roux, interview by author, Paris, April 21, 2009.
52. Indeed, with all mail from Germany: ADV 158W848.
53. Moving from one Swiss canton: Schweizerisches Bundesarchiv: Lugano police report dated December 1, 1939, and signed “Botta.” In 1939, it was illegal to be in Switzerland without prior permission from Swiss federal or cantonal authorities. Strict laws forced foreigners to register either at a hotel or with the local police. The registration formulas were then collected every evening by a police officer and passed to the Swiss central registry in Bern for routine checking. Any undesirable alien could be immediately penalized and expelled.
54. It turned out: Ibid.
55. Within a few days: Schweizerisches Bundesarchiv, Police de Sûreté, November 24, 1939.
56. A Swiss police officer now called on Dincklage: Ibid.
57. Dincklage used his good looks: FSS documents.
58. Later, the Swiss discovered: From a summary of documents translated by Michael Foedrowitz, 2009, found in Swiss National Archives.
59. They would soon show up: NARA WAAG, Secret Jan. 26 1946, U.S. Forces Summary. Schweizerisches Bundesarchiv, November 24, 1939, report.
60. In banner headlines: “GERMANY: To Paris,” Time, May 20, 1940, p. 32.
61. Broadcasting from the German Rundfunk: William L. Shirer, Berlin Diary, pp. 332–33.
62. Hitler’s orders to his army: Ibid., p. 335.
63. According to Shirer: Ibid., p. 385.
64. Panic seized Paris: Harper’s Bazaar, October 1939.
65. Clare Boothe Luce was listening: Boothe Luce, Europe in the Spring, p. 230.
CHAPTER SEVEN: PARIS OCCUPIED—CHANEL A REFUGEE
1. “For a woman”: Charles-Roux: Chanel, p. 265. This phrase is translated “cannot betray one’s senses.”
2. “The airplane has proved”: Will Brownell and Richard N. Billings, So Close to Greatness: A Biography of William C. Bullitt, p. 255.
3. “The streets are utterly deserted”: William L. Shirer, Berlin Diary, pp. 412–13.
4. Chanel’s trip from Paris: Four million refugees were on the roads of France in June 1940. Vaughan, FDR’s 12 Apostles, p. 28.
5. “No American after tonight”: “Foreign News,” Time, June 17, 1940, p. 32.
6. “The best the French could hope for”: “Foreign News,” Time, July 1, 1940, p. 25.
7. After Chanel and Larcher crossed the river Garonne: Gabrielle Palasse Labrunie, interview with author, Yermenonville, France, April 27, 2009.
8. Just after noon on June 17: Ousby, Occupation, p. 63; Montagnon, La France dans la guerre de 39–45, p. 179.
9. Chanel was aghast: Labrunie used Chanel’s word for “betrayal”: “trahison.” Labrunie interview, April 27, 2009.
10. “the shipwreck of France”: Ousby, Occupation, p. 63.
11. “This guy is breaking”: Montagnon, La France dans la guerre de 39–45, p. 187.
12. For many French men and women: In six weeks in May and June 1940, the French army had suffered 120,000 wounded and 120,000 killed or dead of their wounds. The Germans had suffered 45,000 dead; the Belgians 7,500; the Dutch 2,900; the British 6,800. Montagnon, La France dans la guerre de 39–45, p. 207.
13. “The Germans weren’t all gangsters”: Marcel Haedrich, Coco Chanel: Her Life, Her Secrets, p. 144.
14. “scorn, anger, hate”: Shirer, Berlin Diary, p. 422.
15. Soon, the Nazis forced Pétain: Ibid., pp. 79–81.
16. “Statute on Jews”: Thomas Wieder, “Découverte du projet de ‘statut des juifs,’ ” Le Monde, October 5, 2010, p. 10.
17. If Vichy was now: Labrunie interview, May 19, 2009.
18. News from André: Katharina and the girls learned that André could have escaped the Maginot Line before capture. His four-man unit had been sharing one bicycle. When it was André’s turn to have the bicycle, he could have easily fled. Instead, he let his comrade use the bike to flee hours before the line surrendered. On arriving home, the man wrote to Mme Palasse, telling of André’s deed and his probable capture by the Germans.
19. A friend of Chanel’s: André-Louis Dubois, À travers trois Républiques, pp. 56–60.
20. At Vichy: Haedrich, Coco Chanel: Her Life, Her Secrets, p. 143.
21. The Paris Chanel returned to: Allan Mitchell, Nazi Paris: The History of an Occupation, 1940–1944, pp. 13–14.
22. “Thanks to the artificial exchange rate”: Frederic Spotts, The Shameful Peace: How French Artists and Intellectuals Survived the Nazi Occupation, p. 33.
23. Formally correct: For descriptions of the German invaders in Paris, 1940, see photos and text, David Pryce-Jones, Paris in the Third Reich, pp. 3–29.
24. On a crisp fall morning: Francine du Plessix Gray, Them, p. 218.
25. Dincklage was back: CHADAT 7NN 2973. The British National Archives, Kew, and the National Archives in France contain BCRA (General de Gaulle’s intelligence service) documents about Dincklage as an Abwehr agent in France.
26. At age fifty-seven, Chanel: Labrunie interview, May 18, 2009.
27. “On orders from Berlin”: CARAN AJ/40/871, “Seizure of the Ritz.” See Claude Roulet, Ritz: A Story That Outshines the Legend, p. 107. Dincklage’s intervention allowing Chanel to stay at the Ritz is confirmed in a Time magazine article of June 1998. Edmond Charles-Roux, in L’Irrégulière, and author Alex Madsen offer separate versions of how Chanel returned to the Ritz in August 1940. Writer Pierre Galante avoids the subject.
28. In fact, only certain non-Germans: Ibid. “Instruction About Hôtel Ritz” issued by Der Militärbefehlshaber in Frankreich command order, Paris, February 2, 1941.
29. Everyone entering or leaving: See CARAN AJ/40/871, “Instruction about Hôtel Ritz” issued by Der Militärbefehlshaber in Frankreich command order, Paris, February 2, 1941. For distinguished Nazi guests, see Roulet, Ritz: A Story That Outshines the Legend, pp. 108–9.
30. For those allowed entry: Roulet, Ritz: A Story That Outshines the Legend, p. 111.
31. “In times like these”: Henri Amouroux, La Vie des Français sous l’Occupation, p. 141.
32. Chanel believed: Haedrich, Coco Chanel, p. 136.
33. Chanel “was seen everywhere”: Galante, Mademoiselle Chanel, p. 181.
34. “I never saw the Germans”: Haedrich, Coco Chanel: Her Life, Her Secrets, p. 136.
35. Dincklage dined often: CARAN F/7/15327. Folder 209 “FEIHL.”
36. The Serts and their friends: APP DB 540.
37. Chanel preferred hosting: Gabrielle Palasse Labrunie to author in Yermenonville, France, June 9, 2009.
38. Nazi collaborator Fern Bedaux: SSF document. Fern Bedaux used the French term “une intoxiquée.”
39. “the exterminating angel”: Morand, The Allure of Chanel, p. 10.
40. He and his “pro-German” wife: Madsen, A Woman of Her Own, p. 242.
41. But for a truly amusing evening: Barbara Lambauer, “Francophile contre vents et marée? Otto Abetz et les Français, 1930–1958,” Bulletin du Centre de Recherche Français de Jérusalem 18 (2007): 159. The Rothschild furniture referred to belonged to Baron Élie Robert—who was a prisoner of the Nazis in Germany during the war.
42. “Coco Chanel … indulged”: Ousby, Occupation, p. 112.
43. “That’s the way you overthrow”: Ibid., p. 84.
44. Josée raved: In her memoirs about her father, Josée talks often of Chanel. See Yves Pourcher, Pierre Laval vu par sa fille, pp. 213, 215, 313.
45. “in a blacked-out Paris”: Pourcher, Pierre Laval vu par sa fille, pp. 213–14; my translation.
46. The American Hospital at Neuilly: Keating in an unpublished paper, 1981, found in Hal Vaughan, Doctor to the Resistance, pp. 44, 46–48.
47. Even the French staple: Donald and Petie Kladstrup, Wine and War: The French, the Nazis,
and the Battle for France’s Greatest Treasure, pp. 112–16.
CHAPTER EIGHT: DINCKLAGE MEETS HITLER; CHANEL BECOMES AN ABWEHR AGENT
1. “À la guerre comme à la guerre” (Dincklage’s quip): Du Plessix Gray, Them, p. 218.
2. In early 1941: CHADAT 7NN 2717.
3. In Berlin, Dincklage: CHADAT 7NN 2973.
4. However, a document: CARAN 117M128.
5. “D [Dincklage] is [now] on very bad terms”: The French-owned Yugoslavian Bor mines were confiscated by the Nazis in 1940. In a baffling further revelation, French counterintelligence states, “The Gestapo, after having failed to liquidate von D … has now decided to get along with him.” For Dincklage in Berlin and the Gestapo’s attempt to kill him, see CHADAT 7NN 2973: For Vaufreland in Berlin and Tunisia, see BNA document, item 317, H57/139.
6. Meanwhile, Vaufreland had earned: CARAN Z/6/672 greffe 5559, Vaufreland, Abwehr personnel file, Personalbogen, June 9, 1941.
7. They would help Chanel: Ibid. Vaufreland tells how he knew before he met Chanel of her desire to get André Palasse home from Germany.
8. When they returned to Paris: Ibid.
9. A London Free French report: French, British, and American diplomatic reports and intelligence assessments substantiate the London report. BNA: British dispatches, January 20, 1941, Z 407/132/17 and Z 5423. American Consul, Casablanca, letter, May 30, 1941. CARAN 171 mi/125 and 127: “Most Secret, June 25, 1944 Report, Members of German services.”
10. Sometime in the spring of 1941: CARAN Z/6/672 greffe 5559.
11. the Abwehr enrolled: APP BA 1990.
12. “Leaving Paris at 20:10 hours”: For telegram, CARAN Z/6/672 greffe 5559.
13. Wallace: Edmonde Charles-Roux states that Brian Wallace used “Ramon” as his code name when Chanel was in Madrid in 1943 on her second mission for the Nazis. See Charles-Roux, L’Irrégulière, p. 595.
14. “MI, Copy. Enclosure”: BNA document 1139.
15. Chanel and Vaufreland: CHADAT 7NN 2717.
16. Vaufreland arranged for Chanel: Vaufreland testimony before Cours de Justice, CARAN Z/6/672 greffe 5559.