Mademoiselle
Page 61
60 “I thought him a slippery”: Maxwell, “Laval Spelled Backwards.”
61 when Laval ruled Vichy: Laval had two stints under the Vichy regime. The first lasted only a year, after which his penchant for acting independently of Pétain led to dismissal from office. Laval returned to power in 1942. He was arrested in 1945 and executed by firing squad that same year.
62 Misia scolded her for ceding: Vaughan, 131, and Charles-Roux, 554.
63 head of the occupied territories: Vaughan, 131.
64 the privilege of living there: Nonmilitary guests at the Ritz included Madame Marie-Louise Ritz, wife of founder César Ritz; wine magnate and Nazi supporter Charles Dubonnet and his family; and American multimillionaire Charles Bedaux and his wife, Fern. The Bedauxes were also great admirers of Hitler and close to the Windsors. Vaughan, 131; Noel Anthony, “Fern Bedaux Fights Back,” The Milwaukee Journal, April 13, 1955. See also Jonathan Petropoulos, Royals and the Reich: The Princes von Hessen in Nazi Germany (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), esp. 210–12.
65 “Insofar as you have any influence”: Galante, 180.
66 “Wealth is not accumulation”: Delay, 147.
67 “like a snail”: Quoted in ibid., 226.
68 function of purely personal expediency: Marcel Haedrich writes, “With the helmeted sentries and barriers erected in front of the Ritz, she remained Mademoiselle Chanel, protected against everything by her genius, her glory, and also, by her money.” Haedrich, 136.
69 The issuing authority for this document: The document was signed J. Nailier, director of National Security, Chanel dossier, Paris police archives.
70 as light as a bird: Charles-Roux, 545.
71 took part in that assassination: Lisa Chaney cites the memoir of Catsy von Dincklage’s sister, Sybille Bedford, Quicksands (Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2005), 310–11, in which Bedford recalls hearing that Spatz had participated in the murder. Quoted in Chaney, 318. See also Vaughan, 15–19.
72 King Alexander of Yugoslavia: See Chaney, 318n11, referring to Das Braune Netz, 94.
73 Dincklage as an agent: Stephen Wilson notes Allard’s participation in the early projects of Action française in “The Action Française in French Intellectual Life,” The Historical Journal 12, no. 2 (1969): 328–50. Hal Vaughan mentions Allard’s 1939 book as a source of information about Dincklage.
74 “models of psychological tactics”: Allard, 38.
75 “My many society friends in France”: All quotations from Dincklage’s correspondence appear (translated into French) in Paul Allard, Quand Hitler espionne la France (Paris: Les Editions de France, 1939): 38–50.
76 “In June 1942”: Patrick Modiano, La Place de l’Etoile (Paris: Gallimard, 1968), epigraph, p. 12. Modiano is playing on the fact that étoile means “star” in French.
77 The Jew and France: In the summer of 1940, Paris’s Palais Berlitz cinema featured a special exhibition entitled “The Jew and France,” which explained in detail the centuries of corrupt influence Jews had supposedly exercised over France. Over 500,000 people attended this exhibition, which then traveled to other cities.
The statistic and description come from the Shoah Resource Center: http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%206328.pdf.
78 barring Jews from public office: Paris’s Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt was renamed the Théâtre de la Cité, and all city streets named after Jewish people were relabeled. These and many other examples can be found in David Pryce-Jones, Paris in the Third Reich: A History of the German Occupation 1940–1944 (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1981), 82ff.
79 half of France’s Jewish population: Gradually, these anti-Semitic measures built a climate of terror and suspicion. By the end of the war, the Reich had seized more than twenty-one thousand Jewish-owned businesses, confiscated a fortune in Jewish-owned property—everything from middle-class home furnishings to the Rothschilds’ art collection. See Spotts, especially pages 32–33. See also David Carroll, “What It Meant to Be ‘a Jew’ in Vichy France: Xavier Vallat, State Anti-Semitism, and the Question of Assimilation,” SubStance 27, no. 3 (1998): 36–54.
80 a gold Star of David: The Roma people (“Gypsies”), homosexuals, Communists, and other groups were also forced by the Nazis to wear identifying badges.
81 Cocteau’s and Picasso’s close friend: Charles-Roux, 557.
82 vast and simplistic categories: See Régis Meyran, “Vichy: Ou la face cachée de la République,” L’Homme, no. 160 (October–December, 2001): 177–84. Meyran points to the irony of the fact that the French Third Republic had, in fact, been responsible for the invention of Europe’s first “identity cards,” designed originally to ensure the security of French citizens. This political practice, based on a “logic of exclusion”—of foreigners or noncitizens, hence undesirables—was later turned against France by the German occupiers.
83 military men lined up daily: “A line formed every morning well before the store opened, made up mostly of German soldiers,” Chanel told Marcel Haedrich. Haedrich, 134.
84 might have boasted swastikas: See Charles-Roux, 559.
85 she never saw the Germans: Haedrich, 136.
86 misery lay just outside: Spotts, 20, 22.
87 ally in the pro-German branch: Vaughan, 142. Journalist Patrick Cousteau, editor of the Far Right French magazine Minute, believes that Niebuhr was also, at some point, Chanel’s lover. While Niebuhr is mentioned multiple times in her surveillance file, he is not cited as a romantic interest of hers. I have found no evidence to support Cousteau’s claim. Patrick Cousteau, “Ce n’est pas dans le film, Coco Chanel vue par les RG,” Minute, April 2009.
88 “My joy was beyond words”: Muggeridge interview with Chanel.
89 “In a France subjected”: Buisson, 18–20.
90 other prominent Gentile figureheads: See Galante, 182–83. See also Vaughan, 151–52.
91 past as a kept woman: For Charles-Roux, this use of Nexon represents the Wertheimers’ “refinement of cruelty”—a way to throw Chanel off guard by placing her in front of “the ironic gaze of a society man from a world she could never think of without bitterness … a witness from her past.” Charles-Roux, 561.
92 power of money to short-circuit: The transaction and its implications have been discussed in numerous places, including The New York Times. See Dana Thomas, “The Power Behind the Cologne,” The New York Times, February 24, 2002.
93 the all-important synthetic aldehydes: “No. 5 [was] probably the only perfume whose quality remained the same throughout the war,” a company representative told Pierre Galante, 183.
94 procure the jasmine, ylang-ylang: This corporate “agent,” Herbert Gregory Thomas, was an American-born international lawyer—fluent in French, Spanish, and German—who worked for the Wertheimers’ main company, Bourjois. In the summer of 1940, disguised as a Spanish businessman and using a false passport, he traveled from New York to France via Spain, on a four-month mission for Chanel, Inc. During those months, he accomplished a series of seemingly impossible feats: He secured the secret “recipe” for Chanel No. 5; he smuggled out of Grasse a massive quantity of “natural aromatics”; and, with the aid of Félix Amiot, he smuggled Jacques Wertheimer, son of Pierre, out of Bordeaux, where he was hiding after escaping a German POW camp. Unsurprisingly, soon after returning from this mission, Thomas joined the Office of Strategic Services, which later became the CIA. After the war, he rejoined the Wertheimer organization, serving as president of Chanel, Inc., for twenty-seven years. Pierre Galante alludes to this story in his biography, but it is Hal Vaughan who put all the details together most clearly. Information on the story of Herbert Gregory Thomas also appears in Phyllis Berman and Zina Saway, “The Billionaires Behind Chanel,” Forbes, April 3, 1989, 104–8.
95 “[She said], ‘My dear’ ”: Chazot, Chazot Jacques, 74–75.
96 “Gabrielle Chanel was not”: Jean-Louis de Faucigny-Lucinge. Un Gentilhomme cosmopolite (Paris: Editions P
errin, 1990), 183.
97 “sort of resentment and bitterness”: Emmanuel de Brantes and Gilles Brochard, “Interview with Jean-Louis de Faucigny-Lucinge,” Le Quotidien de Paris, April, 26, 1990.
98 Chanel’s surprising intervention: Palmer is an international consultant for Mondex Corporation of Toronto. He focuses on helping Jewish families recover assets looted from them during World War II, specializing in looted art.
99 the maiden name of “Dreyfus”: This is the famous banking branch of the Dreyfus family, also known as the Louis-Dreyfuses, founders of the famous Dreyfus fund. American television actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus belongs to this branch of the family.
100 “I was so hungry”: Viviane Forrester, Ce soir, aprés la guerre (Paris: Fayard, 1992), 62.
101 “I remember some of the stories”: Ibid., 99–100.
102 “was working for a German officer”: Lady Christine Swaythling, personal interviews with author, March 11, 2011, and August 5, 2012.
103 practice of pillaging Jewish homes: See Frederic Spotts on the practice of looting homes. “Less senior officials requisitioned family homes or confiscated those that had been abandoned by their rich British or Jewish owners.… Whole neighborhoods were sometimes taken over, owners thrown out.… The higher-ups helped themselves to furniture, kitchen equipment, linen, cutlery … and whatever else caught their fancy.” Spotts, 32–33.
104 paintings stolen by the Nazis: Vaughan, 157.
105 her blithe disregard: Documentation of this spy mission exists in a number of venues, including the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, which houses the Nuremberg trial transcripts of Nazi officials involved in Modellhut, the French army intelligence files, the British National Archives, and German intelligence archives.
106 impetus behind this scheme: Given how convoluted the story would become, its basic outline, as laid out in Nuremberg testimony, is deceptively brief:
“In April 1944 Staatsrat Schiebe [Walter Schieber], [Albert] Speer’s right-hand man and one Rittmeister [Theodor] Momm mentioned to Schellenberg the existence of a certain Frau Chanel, a French subject and proprietress of the noted perfume factory. This woman was referred to as a person who knew Churchill sufficiently to undertake political negotiations with him, as an enemy of Russia and as desirous of helping France and Germany whose destinies she believed to be closely linked together.” National Archives, Schellenberg testimony, deposed by Sir Stuart Hampshire, 1944, quoted in Reinhard Doerries, Hitler’s Last Chief of Foreign Intelligence: Allied Interrogations of Walter Schellenberg (New York: Routledge, 2003), 108.
107 approached Captain Theodor Momm: Charles-Roux, 569.
108 “keep Spatz close to her”: Vaughan, 159. According to Vaughan, Gabrielle Palasse-Labrunie confirms that her aunt wanted desperately to remain with Dincklage.
109 Dincklage secured permission: Vaughan, 160. Modellhut was exposed in April 1944 on page 65 of British Intelligence Report on the Case of Walter Schellenberg. Based on interrogations by agents of MI6, July 1945, at camp 020. It is stored as file xe001752: Walter S., Investigative Records Repository, Records of Army Staff, Record Group 319, National Archives at College Park.
110 part of his Nuremberg testimony: The U.S. National Archives house the transcripts of his testimony, which were declassified in 1985. Schellenberg was deposed by Sir Stuart Hampshire of the MI6, the British Secret Service.
111 Hoare was another old friend: In his biography of the Duchess of Windsor, Charles Higham cites Hoare’s involvement in “discussing with [the Windsors] the potential of peaceful arrangements between Britain and Germany.” Charles Higham, The Duchess of Windsor: A Secret Life (1988; repr., Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley, 2005), 334–35. According to Michael Bloch, Hoare was described as “the prime target for German peace feelers.” Bloch, The Secret File of the Duke of Windsor (New York: HarperCollins, 1989), 108, quoted in Petropoulos, 211.
112 Chanel placed a curious condition: Vera would later say she had not seen Chanel in seven years, claiming in a letter to Churchill (dated August 8, 1944) that Chanel had “thrown her out” of her business in 1937. I have seen no other evidence of this, and Bate might be exaggerating in an attempt to distance herself even more from Chanel. The Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge University.
113 exploit Vera’s high-level connections: “Without Vera, the mission had no chance for success. Only Vera was close enough to Churchill.” Charles-Roux, 579.
114 part of a Nazi plan: This is according to Charles-Roux, who interviewed Vera directly. Vera had attracted suspicion on both sides of the political divide. In the 1930s, French intelligence suspected her of spying for the fascists and kept her under extensive surveillance. French concerns about their activities were raised especially about Vera’s second husband, Prince Alberto Lombardi, known to be a high-ranking member of the Italian National Fascist Party. Their file describes Lombardi as “disdainful and uncommunicative” and of uncertain occupation. The couple are described as “very suspicious.” Paris police archives, report dated January 20, 1931, dossier 239.195.
115 the war’s most brutal criminals: Uki Goñi reveals this in his book The Real Odessa. Goñi explains that Hendaye was the “French town where the Argentine diplomats in Spain who collaborated with the SD [German foreign intelligence service] went to deliver their reports.” Uki Goñi, The Real Odessa: Smuggling the Nazis to Peron’s Argentina (New York: Granta Books, 2002), 241.
116 Sommer in his Nuremberg testimony: This is reported in the testimony of Hans Sommer, quoted in Uki Goñi. Kutschmann, the Gestapo chief of Bordeaux at one time, was a notorious war criminal and, according to The New York Times, “boasted publicly of being responsible for the deaths of 15,000 Jews in Russia and Poland.” “Spain Prodded Again on Sheltering Nazis,” The New York Times, June 19, 1946. According to Goñi, Kutschmann managed to evade prosecution by fleeing to Argentina, disguised as a Carmelite monk. See Goñi, 241ff.
117 “Pull [Vera] out of this situation”: CHAR 20/198A 66, Churchill Archives Centre. An embassy diplomat, Henry Hankey, sent Chanel’s letter on to 10 Downing Street, where John Colville, private secretary to Churchill, forwarded it to his colleague Kathleen Hill, another Churchill secretary, with a note attached dated January 24, 1944. That note expresses skepticism about Chanel’s claims of an ongoing close friendship with the prime minister. CHAR 20/198A 64, Churchill Archives Centre.
118 prevail upon her Allied connections: After nearly eight months in Spain, Vera wrote to Churchill on August 8, 1944, imploring him to rescue her and blaming Chanel openly:
Dear Winston,
I’ve never dared write and bother you about this interminable and nightmarish wait here to be allowed to repatriate after my escape from Coco and the Germans.… My conscience tells me your thoughts are far too precious to us all to be wasted on “old me” but on the other hand it does seem such a sign from heaven above [that Randolph Churchill advised her to write to his father] I’ve decided to act on it.… I was forcibly brought to [Chanel] in Paris in December 43 by her orders and by the methods of her German friends and my jailers.… I have written a report and given verbally all the information I can think of about the details of my imprisonment and kidnapping and I know no more. I found Coco very changed from seven years ago.… After all I had been thru for my fanatically British attitude that I could be suspected by my own people of doing something traitorish I can’t believe it even now and beg to be allowed to defend myself.… Please let me go home to Albert and Tiger and work in the Cause you and I believe in I am getting old but I will do what I’ve always tried to do, my best its been no great shakes but I’m not a marvel but I am English and proud of it.
Your affectionate Vera
Still plagued by suspicions of espionage, Vera found herself once more a prisoner, albeit this time in far more luxurious quarters than she’d endured in her Roman jail. After moving out of the Madrid Ritz, she accepted the hospitality of the British diplomat assigned to “watch” her, Brian Wallace. Wal
lace had been sympathetic to Vera from the start, and had warned her to avoid being seen with Coco in Madrid.
119 Vera remained tainted for months: “I shall be glad to discuss with you the case of Vera Lombardi nee Arkwright who wishes to rejoin her husband in Italy,” wrote Churchill to General Henry Wilson, supreme allied commander in the Mediterranean Theatre, on October 14, 1944. CHAR 20/198A/ 83, Churchill Archives Centre. A December 3 letter from a U.S. Army officer to Churchill’s London office explains that the “case of Madam Vera Lombardi [is] delayed owing to the fact that madam Chanel who apparently instigated the special facilities afforded by the German Gestapo to Madam Lombardi is still being interrogated in France.”
120 This document cleared Vera’s name: The telegram ending Vera’s purgatory read simply: “Madame Lombardi is free to return to Italy.” CHAR 20/198A/89, Churchill Archives Centre.
121 never spoken to Chanel again: Upon her return to Paris, Chanel did address an angry letter to Vera in Madrid, berating her for her “betrayals.” Charles-Roux, 600.
122 wear the chic black uniform: See chapter 10 for Schellenberg’s remarks on the allure of the Nazi uniform, and so forth.
123 “Microphones were everywhere”: Quoted by Alan Bullock, in the introduction to Walter Schellenberg, Hitler’s Secret Service [original title: The Labyrinth], trans. Louis Hagen (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1956), 8.
124 “Schellenberg was a great man”: Transcript translated from the Spanish by Uki Goñi. Goñi, personal interview with author, June 12, 2011. The original tape of the conversation is held at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
125 one of Franco’s spies: Countess Isabella also hinted that she had heard some facts about the romance from Otto Skorzeny, a high-ranking Nazi agent who was a close friend of Schellenberg’s, with whom the countess had a brief friendship while still a teenager. Charles-Roux, 631, mentions Schellenberg’s friendship with Skorzeny.