by Susan Ronald
Knochen, Helmut (1910–2003), was the head of the security police in Paris during the occupation, and part-time lover of Florence Gould. He was found guilty of war crimes by both the British and the French courts, but was reprieved at the behest of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer after the war.
Medicus, General Franz (1890–1967), was in charge of operations based out of the Goulds’ Maisons-Laffitte estate. After the war, he was taken to the U.S.A. as part of Operation Paperclip, designed to save the best German scientific brains.
Oberg, General Carl Albrecht (1897–1965), was also known as the “Butcher of Paris” and was sentenced to death by the French. He was well known to Florence Gould and helped her on many occasions. Both he and Helmut Knochen received a reprieve at the behest of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer.
Praeger-Gretsch, Willy, worked for Arnold Garthe and the Abwehr and introduced a spy into Florence Gould’s home.
Steffens, Walter (1908–2006), was part of the Olympic gymnastics winning team in the 1936 Olympics. Arnold Garthe of the Abwehr thought that Steffens was incompetent and had him transferred.
Vogel, Carl Ludwig Adolf (b. 1909–1994), was an approved Nazi black marketeer, aeronautics businessman, and wartime lover of Florence Gould. Florence facilitated his inclusion in Operation Paperclip after the war so that he could immigrate to the United States. J. Edgar Hoover personally tried to keep Vogel out, but failed.
Warzinski, Hans Dietrich, Aryan manager of the Goulds’ businesses, and key member of the team who helped Florence become involved with the Banque Charles scheme. He disappeared at the time of the liberation of Paris to Spain.
The Americans
Baker, Josephine (1906–1975), American-born cabaret singer and entertainer who became a star in Paris in the 1920s. Baker left Paris at the time of the occupation and worked for the Resistance throughout the war. She became a French citizen and received the Legion of Honor medal for her work.
Beach, Sylvia (1887–1962), publisher, writer, and founder of Shakespeare and Company in Paris promoting the works of the authors of the Lost Generation and in particular publishing James Joyce’s Ulysses. An indefatigable patron and promoter of American and English literature in Paris, Beach was among the Americans rounded up and put into the camp at Vittel in 1942 after America entered the war. She never reopened Shakespeare and Company after the war ended.
Biddle, Francis B. (1886–1968), was a lawyer, judge, and attorney general of the United States. He was a primary judge for war crimes at Nuremberg, which more than likely affected his view of Florence’s crimes.
Bullitt, William C. (1891–1967), first American ambassador to the Soviet Union, then ambassador to France. Bullitt rented his residence from the Goulds and became very friendly with Florence. He handed over the city of Paris to the Nazis in loco of the French government in exile. After the war, he retired to Neuilly to the home he had originally rented from the Goulds.
Cahill, John T. (1903–1966), joined Cotton & Franklin, the predecessor of the law firm Gordon, Cahill & Reindel. The son of an Irish-immigrant New York City police officer, Cahill took his law degree at Columbia University. In addition to the Goulds, he represented giant corporations like NBC, RCA, and W.R. Grace.
Daughters, Donald L. (d. 2006), was the officer serving in U.S. forces who wrote the most comprehensive and fair report of Florence’s wartime activities.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott (1896–1940), novelist and friend of the Murphys, Hemingway, and the Goulds. He rewrote his great work The Great Gatsby based on the life he observed at Juan-les-Pins.
Fitzgerald, Zelda (1900–1948), novelist, dancer, friend of the Murphys, and wife of Scott Fitzgerald. Florence Gould adored her, but was forced to recognize that there was some sort of madness about Zelda. Frank Jay Gould ordered Florence not to entertain her anymore.
Hemingway, Ernest (1899–1961), newspaperman, novelist, and friend of the Murphys, Fitzgeralds, and Florence in the 1920s. He also supported Sylvia Beach for her many kindnesses.
Hoover, J. Edgar (1895–1972), director of the FBI and unrelenting opponent of Florence Gould and Ludwig Vogel.
Hoving, Tom (1931–2009), director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and in his own words “toady” to Florence Gould.
Lauder, Estée (1906–2004), international cosmetics businesswoman and close personal friend of Florence Gould, who facilitated Florence’s relationship with the Met.
Loeb, Charles G. (1885–1944), the Lacaze family lawyer and also Frank Jay Gould’s lawyer through the early 1920s and 1930s before his return to New York.
Murphy, Gerald and Sara (Gerald, 1888–1964 and Sara Wiborg, 1883–1975), were expatriate Americans whose flare for living well attracted a number of writers of the Lost Generation as well as other friends, like Dorothy Parker and Cole Porter. They settled in the 1920s at Antibes–Juan-les-Pins.
Rorimer, James (1905–1966), was a World War II Monuments Man and director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He was the founding force behind the Cloisters, dedicated to the art and architecture of medieval Europe. He thought that Florence was a tremendous bore.
Smith, Ada “Bricktop” (1894–1984), American dancer, singer, and nightclub owner in Paris born to an Irish father and a black American mother. She continued to perform well into her eighties, but was best known as the doyenne of the café society of 1920s Paris.
Stein, Gertrude (1874–1946), novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. She held her avant-garde salon on rue de Fleurus until the war, only a stone’s throw from where Florence grew up in Paris.
Toklas, Alice B. (1877–1967), San Francisco–born member of the Paris avant-garde and life partner of Gertrude Stein.
Other Fellow Travelers
Benvenuti, Joseph (1898–1967), Florence’s friend and pianist/violinist who acted as her go-between with Michel Szkolnikoff in 1944. He was born in Tunisia to Italian parents.
Chaplin, Sir Charles (1889–1977), KBE, entertainer, writer, director, and Hollywood film idol. Chaplin’s first love was the sister of Frank Jay Gould’s second wife, Edith Kelly. He had a brief affair with Florence, hoping to lure her to Hollywood.
Charles, Baron Johann, Nazi sympathizer and Swiss financier used by Aero-bank and high-ranking Nazis to set up a bank in his name in Monaco. Florence was a director and investor.
Grosvenor, Hugh, Duke of Westminster, “Bendor” (1879–1953), 2nd Duke of Westminster and lover of Coco Chanel. His generosity and contacts not only launched Chanel as a couturier, but also more than likely saved her from prosecution for collaboration after the war.
Louis II, Prince of Monaco (1870–1949), was the Grimaldi ruler of Monaco during World War II, and grandfather of Rainier III. He allowed Monaco to be embroiled in the flight of Nazi capital at the end of the war by taking the advice of corrupt advisers.
Picasso, Pablo (1881–1973), painter, sculptor, and ceramicist who was very friendly with the Murphys in the 1920s. Picasso also rented La Vigie from the Goulds after the war, and painted murals on their walls in thanks. Frank Jay Gould hated Picasso’s art and had the walls whitewashed.
Roblot, Émile (1886–1963), corrupt Monégasque minister of state responsible for passing the laws that enabled Banque Charles to operate in Monaco.
Szkolnikoff, Michel (1895–1945), Russian businessman funded by the Nazis to help with the flight of Nazi capital and buy up luxury casinos and hotels. Florence was involved with his schemes regarding Monaco. He stole incriminating papers and was most likely murdered by his French pursuers.
Zaharoff, Sir Basil (1849–1936), a Greek-born arms dealer and industrialist who held a controlling interest in the hotel and casino company SBM of Monaco.
Zanini, Diego, Florence’s butler before and during the war. He disappeared at the time of the liberation, but gave a glowing testimonial to OSS officers about both Florence and Ludwig Vogel.
GLOSSARY
AP
Associated Press
Action Française
the anti-Semiti
c league in France
arrondissement
city district of Paris
beau monde
beautiful people
boulets
manufactured balls of coal dust, straw, and peat
bouquinistes
booksellers, usually outdoor stalls lining the River Seine
cache-sexe
fig leaf used to hide sexual organs
Cagoule
an extreme right sect known for their hooded capes
cercles
private gambling clubs
Cercle Rive Gauche
Left Bank literary group sympathetic to the Third Reich
cocottes
darlings
collaboration horizontale
sleeping with the enemy
Comité France-Allemagne (CFA)
group founded in November 1935 by Otto Abetz as a propaganda tool
département
province
DNA (Deutsche Nachtrichtenabteilung)
German News Agency
Deuxième Bureau
Investigative intelligence service
Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg
Art-looting arm of the Reich in France
en famille
together as a family
épureur
the judge in collaboration cases
ésprit parisien
Parisian mind or way of living
flâneur
a person who strolls aimlessly, an urban explorer of a literary penchant doing the opposite of nothing in search of a “gastronomy of the eye,” according to Balzac
froussards
panic merchants
hivernants
snowbirds
hôtel particulier
a city mansion
IEQJ
Institut d’Études des Questions Juives—Institute for the Study of the Jewish Question
indignité nationale
1944 law enacted to stop vigilante reprisals against collaborators.
Kunstschutz
German Arts and Monuments Protection Office
le gratin
the upper crust
les enfers
private gambling clubs, or literally, hells
le Tout-Paris
the fashionable elite of Paris
Mairie
mayor’s office or town hall
maisons de joie
brothels
mannequins habillés
scantily dressed models
maquisard
French commandos in the Free Zone
marriage blanc
an unconsummated marriage
Milice
French pro-Nazi paramilitary organization
nuits blanches
nights without sleep, partying
OSS
Office of Strategic Services
pays de cocagne
land of milk and honey
pickelhaube
German spiked helmet
poilus
common conscripts
rafles
lightning raids to round up Jews
Reichsjugendführung (RJF)
Reich Youth Directorate
salonnière
society hostess, usually with a special Coterie
Service de Renseignements
Intelligence Services
tableaux vivants
posing of live models as a painting
Tout Va
no limit gambling
NOTES
Abbreviations
ADAM
Archives des Alpes-Maritimes
ADVN
Archives de la ville de Nice
AMC
Archives municipales de Cannes
ANF
Archives nationales de France
BNF
Bibliothèque nationale de France
CDJC
Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine
FOLD3
Digital archive of NARA
JSTOR
Digital Scholarly Network for Articles and Books
MMA
Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York)
NARA
National Archives & Records Administration, College Park, Maryland, USA (renamed the National Archives since researching)
NYHS
New-York Historical Society
NYPL
New York Public Library
OED
Oxford English Dictionary
PP
Préfecture de Police
Note: All translations from French are the author’s.
1. San Francisco
1 Simon Winchester, A Crack in the Edge of the World: The Great American Earthquake of 1906 (London: Penguin Books, 2006), 215–216.
2 Ibid.
3 http://www.sfmuseum.net/1906/ew15.html.
4 Winchester, A Crack in the Edge of the World, 208.
5 Ibid., 209.
6 President Polk believed in the United States of America’s “Manifest Destiny” to span the continent from coast to coast and took advantage of a number of border skirmishes with Mexico at the Rio Grande to fight for a third of Mexico’s territory that forms much of modern-day Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, and California. For a wonderful book on Polk and his ambitions, see Walter R. Borneman’s Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America (New York: Random House, 2008).
7 Gilles Cornut-Gentille and Philippe Michel-Thiriet, Florence Gould: Une Américaine à Paris (Paris: Mercure de France, 1989), 19.
8 Winchester, A Crack in the Edge of the World, 191.
9 Frank Soulé, Annals of San Francisco: Containing a Summary of the History of California and a History of Its Great City (Berlin: Jazzybee Verlag, 1855), p. 54.
10 http://www.oed.com.ezproxy2.londonlibrary.co.uk/view/Entry/177471?redirectedFrom=shanghaied#eid2317065.1.
11 Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), 15.
12 https://www.newspapers.com/image/27523525/?terms=Franco-Californien, San Francisco Chronicle, July 13, 1893; http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SFC18981203.2.166, San Francisco Call, December 3, 1898; https://www.newspapers.com/image/46547276/?terms=%22Goustiaux%22, San Francisco Call, October 14, 1901.
13 Dunbar H. Ogden, Douglas McDermott, and Robert Károly Sarlós, Theatre West: Impact and Image (Atlanta, GA: Rodopi, 1990), 20.
14 Cornut-Gentille and Michel-Thiriet, Florence Gould, 19.
15 https://www.newspapers.com/image/48768585/?terms=%22M%2BV%2BLacaze%22, San Francisco Call, September 21, 1902.
16 https://www.newspapers.com/image/46551760/?terms=%22M.V.%2BLacaze%22, San Francisco Call, June 26, 1904.
17 http://www.sfmuseum.org/1906/sprr.html; https://www.newspapers.com/image/46518432/?terms=Bazille, San Francisco Call, February 3, 1905, 2.
18 Cornut-Gentille and Michel-Thiriet, Florence Gould, 24.
2. From Fire to Flood and Death
1 Gilles Cornut-Gentille and Philippe Michel-Thiriet, Florence Gould: Une Américaine à Paris (Paris: Mercure de France, 1989), 26.
2 Ibid., 27.
3 Ibid., 28–29.
4 Lacaze was listed as a “non-immigrant alien” on the ship’s manifest in 1911 and in the 1900 census; however, he is also on the 1903 voting register in San Francisco as a naturalized American citizen. See entry M. V. Lacaze in ancestry.com. See too http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?_phsrc=nRx7&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true&gl=40&gss=angs-g&new=1&rank=1&msT=1&gsfn=Maximin%20V%20&gsfn_x=0&gsln=Lacaze&gsln_x=0&msypn__ftp=San%20Francisco,%20San%20Francisco,%20California,%20USA&msypn=69183&msypn_PInfo=8-%7C0%7C1652393%7C0%7C2%7C0%7C7%7C0%7C2599%7C69183%7C0%7C0%7C&cp=0&catbucket=rstp&MSAV=0&so=2
5 www.new
spapers.com, San Francisco Call, June 7, 1908.
6 Jeffrey H. Jackson, Paris Under Water: How the City of Light Survived the Great Flood of 1910 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 9; cf. Harvey Levenstein, Selective Journeys: American Tourists in Paris from Jefferson to the Jazz Age (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 88.
7 Ibid., 29.
8 Ibid., 34–35.
9 Ibid., 43. See also Auguste Pawlowski and Albert Radoux, Les Crues de Paris: causes, méchanisme, histoire (Paris: Berger-Levrault, 1910).
10 Ibid., 90.
11 Ibid., 74.
12 https://www.newspapers.com/image/82725022/?terms=M%2BV%2BLacaze, San Francisco Call, November 24, 1911, 4.
13 Cornut-Gentille and Michel-Thiriet, Florence Gould, 29.