Hal Vaughan - Sleeping with the Enemy: Coco Chanels Secret War

A LSO B Y H AL V AUGHAN

Doctor to the Resistance
FDRs 12 Apostles

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

Copyright 2011 by Hal Vaughan

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

www.aaknopf.com

Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Vaughan, Hal.

Sleeping with the enemy : Coco Chanels secret war / by Hal Vaughan.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-95703-0
1. Chanel, Coco, 18831971. 2. Fashion designersFranceBiography. 3. World War, 19391945Secret serviceGermany. 4. Espionage, GermanHistory20th century.
I. Title.
TT 505. C 45 V 38 2011
746.92092dc23
[B] 2011020430

Jacket design by Carol Devine Carson

v3.1

This book is dedicated to those French men and women
who, though bent by the Nazi yoke, refused to collaborate.
And as always, for Phuong.

I long to hear the story of your life,
which must captivate the ear strangely.

S HAKESPEARE , T HE T EMPEST

Boy Capel, Lon de Laborde, and Chanel, ca. 1908. (Edmonde Charles-Roux collection)

Arthur Boy Capel with Chanel, Balsans Chteau Royallieu. (Collection Sirot-Angel)

Cartoonist SEMs illustration of Chanel at Boy Capels mercy, ca. 1910. (SPADEM, Paris)

Misia Godebska, 1905. (Lebrecht Music & Arts)

Composer Igor Stravinsky and ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, Paris, 1911. (Lebrecht Music & Arts/Corbis)

Misia dressed as a man, ca. 1910. (Lebrecht Music & Arts)

Lieutenant Hans Gnther von Dincklage and fellow officers, ca. 1917. (Courtesy Michael Foedrowitz)

Chanel, 1920. (Pictures, Inc./Getty)

Impresario Sergei Diaghilev and composer Igor Stravinsky, Seville. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Jean Cocteau with Lydia Sokolova, Anton Dolin, Leon Woizikowsky, and Bronislava Nijinska, London. (Photo by Sasha. Hulton Archive/Getty)

Grand Duke Dimitri, 1910. (RIA Novosti)

The hallmark Chanel No. 5 flacon. (Muse Carnavalet/Roger-Viollet)

Pierre Wertheimer, 1928. (Keystone/Gamma Rapho)

The poet Pierre Reverdy, 1940. (Albert Harlingue/Roger-Viollet)

Lady Dunn with Chanel and her dog Gigot. (Cond Nast Archive/Corbis)

Bendor, Duke of Westminster, and Chanel at the Grand National racetrack, May 1924. (Hulton Archive/Getty)

Chanel and Vera Bate, ca. 1925.

Chanel and Sir Winston Churchill at the Duke of Westminsters Eaton Hall, 1929. (Hugo Vickers Collection)

Chanel in hunting dress with Winston Churchill and his son, Randolph, in France, 1928. (UPI/Bettmann News Photos, New York)

Serge Lifar, as Vestris, wearing a costume designed by Chanel, June 1939. (Boris Lipnitzki/Roger-Viollet)

ca. 1930. (Photo by Walter Bondy. Ville de Toulon, France, Bibliothque Municipale, Fonds Bondy)

French naval lieutenant Charles Coton and wife, La, mid-1930s. (Courtesy Walter Bondy)

With Ina Claire, Hollywood, 1931. (Bettmann/Corbis)

Gloria Swanson in Tonight or Never. (United Artists/Photofest)

Robert Greig and Gloria Swanson in Tonight or Never. (United Artists/Photofest)

Paul Iribe, 1924. (Paramount Pictures/Photofest)

Mila Parly and Nora Gregor in Rules of the Game, 1939. (Cine Classics Inc./Photofest)

Madge Evans, Ina Claire, and Joan Blondel in the 1932 film The Greeks Had a Word for Them. (United Artists/Photofest)

Suzanne and Otto Abetz with Ren de Chambrun, September 1941. (Roger-Viollet)

Baron von Dincklage, ca. 1935. (Courtesy Mme Edmonde Charles-Roux.)

Le Tmoin illustration.

Spatz von Dincklage and Hlne Dessoffy, the French Riviera, ca. 1938. (Photo from Them, by Francine du Plessix Gray)

Chanels employees struck and closed her business, 1936. (Keystone/Gamma-Rapho)

Misia Sert, 1937. (Photo Franois Kollar)

The Duke of Windsor and his bride, the former Wallis Simpson, greeted by Adolf Hitler, 1936. (Courtesy Archives Ullstein Bild)

Chanels grand-niece Gabrielle Palasse. (Mme Gabrielle Palasse Labrunie private collection)

Andr Palasse, Chanels nephew, Paris. (Mme Gabrielle Palasse Labrunie private collection)

Nazi fhrer Adolf Hitler, Eiffel Tower, June 1940.

The Nazi swastika above the building of the French Interior Ministry in occupied Paris, January 1940. (Ullstein Bild/Roger-Viollet)

German officers, Paris Opra, ca. 1940. (Keystone France/Gamma-Rapho)

Correspondence from German Military Headquarters, Paris. (Archives nationales, Paris, AJ/40/871)

List of civilians allowed by Nazis to room at the Htel Ritz. (CARAN AJ/40/871)

Dining room of the Htel Ritz, 1939. (Roger-Viollet)

Starving Parisians searching for food and scraps in the garbage, September 1942. (LAPI/Roger-Viollet)

French document revealing Vaufreland was an intimate friend of Chanel. (Centre historique des archives)

Dincklages protg, Baron Louis de Vaufreland. (French National Archives)

Police intelligence report showing Chanels Abwehr agent number and code name. (Prfecture de Police, Paris, BA1990, Chanel)

Sonderfhrer Albert Notterman, 1947. (Private collection)

H. Gregory Thomas, Worlds Fair, New York, 1939. (New York Worlds Fair 19391940 records, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.)

Abwehr major Theodor Momm, ca. 1947. (Courtesy Michael Foedrowitz.)

German Abwehr agent Count Joseph von Ledebur-Wicheln, 1944. (National Archives, Kew)

SS headquarters, Berlin. (Courtesy Michael Foedrowitz)

SS general Walter Schellenberg, Himmlers chief of SS intelligence. (Courtesy Michael Foedrowitz)

Document from Chanels police file. (Prfecture de Police, Paris, France. BA1990, Chanel)

SS captain Walter Kutschmann in civilian dress. (From the private collection of Michael Foedrowitz)

Letter from Henry Hankey forwarding Chanels letter to Winston Churchills personal secretary, January 1944. (Charwell Trust 20/198)

German officers, Paris, August 1944. (Keystone/Getty Images)

Two women bearing Nazi swastikas on their shorn heads. (Three Lions/Getty Images)

Top secret personal telegram from Winston Churchill in Moscow, October 1944. (The Sir Winston Churchill Archive Trust, CHAR 20/198A)

Top secret dispatch from British diplomat, December 1944. (The Sir Winston Churchill Archive Trust, CHAR 20/198A)

Letter from Allied Force Headquarters, Paris, reporting to London, December 1944. (Chartwell Trust)

Dincklage, 1944. (Swiss National Archives)

Index card from French archives with Chanels name handwritten. (French National Archives)

A jury trial in session, Palais de Justice, Paris. (Albert Harlingue/Roger-Viollet)

Rosencrantz estate near Kiel. (Courtesy Michael Foedrowitz)

Walter Schellenberg, 1945. (U.S. National Archives).

Chanel and Dincklage, Switzerland, 1949. (Bridgeman Art Library)

The rue Cambon staircase from the Broadway musical Coco