Tilar J. Mazzeo - The Hotel on Place Vendome: Life, Death, and Betrayal at the Hotel Ritz in Paris

F OR E MMANUEL

I L FAUT TRE TRS PATIENT...

J E TE REGARDERAI DU COIN DE
LOEIL ET TU NE DIRAS RIEN.

L UXURY STAINS EVERYONE IT TOUCHES.

Charles Ritz

Contents

T HE H OTEL S TAFF

B LANCHE A UZELLO : Reckless and beautiful American-born, German-Jewish wife of the director of the Htel Ritz. She lived in Paris during the war on a forged passport and was drawn unwittingly into the secret networks of the resistance.

C LAUDE A UZELLO : Chief director of the Htel Ritz, an old French soldier, skilled at catering to the whims of the rich and famous. Otherwise gravely polite, he was rash in his contempt for the hotels German occupiers. Unbeknownst to his wife, he was part of a second resistance network run from the kitchens of the Htel Ritz and under close German surveillance.

H ANS F RANZ E LMINGER : Officious German-speaking, Swiss-born deputy manager, delegated with managing day-to-day operations involving the Nazis. He was the nephew of the Htel Ritz president, the baron Hans von Pfyffer. Studiously neutral to all appearances, in the last summer of the war he and his wife, L UCIENNE , guarded a dangerous secret.

M ARIE -L OUISE , M ADAME R ITZ : Widow of the hotels late founder, Csar Ritz; she was a savvy Swiss businesswoman but frequently vain and foolish. Accompanied everywhere by two Belgian griffons, Madame Ritz despised B LANCHE A UZELLO , who ardently returned the favor.

C HARLES C HARLEY R ITZ : Son of M ARIE -L OUISE and the hotels eponymous founder, Csar Ritz; a passionate sportsman, reluctant hotelier, and drinking buddy of E RNEST H EMINGWAY .

F RANK M EIER : Legendary bartender at the rue Cambon side bar at the Htel Ritz, inventor of some of the most famous classic cocktails of the 1930s; one-quarter Jewish, Austrian-born, and active in the resistance. The informal post office run from behind Franks bar was known to both French and German intelligence operatives. His second-in-command and successor was barman G EORGES S CHEUER .

M ONSIEUR S SS : The Swiss assistant director of the Ritz who played both sides against the middle. With Claude Auzello, he worked to circumvent German air raid regulations and to aid the Allies; with the Germans, he colluded in looting the cultural patrimony of Paris.

O LIVIER D ABESCAT : Waiter, matre dhtel, and M ARCEL P ROUSTS chatty informer. Stern, precise, cool, and forbidding, he was the final arbiter of social prestige at the Htel Ritz and, in the eyes of those who feared him, one of the silent powers behind the thrones of Europe.

A UGUSTE E SCOFFIER : One of the Htel Ritzs cofounders and the greatest chef of the twentieth century, he introduced the modern menu and made it possible for women to dine in public. The French actress S ARAH B ERNHARDT was his on-again, off-again lover and his greatest passion.

T HE G ERMANS

R EICHSMARSCHALL H ERMANN G RING : The morphine-addicted, flamboyantly excessive, and often ludicrous German air force general, Hermann Gring spent much of the war at the Htel Ritz pillaging art, running the Nazi war machine, and desperately trying to avoid the brutal rages of A DOLF H ITLER , who blamed his second-in-command for failing to secure world domination.

C OLONEL H ANS S PEIDEL : German colonel who occupied various chief-of-staff positions in occupied Paris. Responsible in the early years of the occupation for overseeing the daily administration of the Htel Ritz in Paris, he was later part of Operation Valkyrie, the doomed summer plot to assassinate A DOLF H ITLER .

C ARL -H EINRICH VON S TLPNAGEL : Military commander of occupied Paris; with his cousin L IEUTENANT C OLONEL C AESAR VON H OFACKER , central players in the failed Operation Valkyrie.

C AESAR VON H OFACKER : With his cousin C ARL -H EINRICH VON S TLPNAGEL , one of the architects in Paris of the failed Operation Valkyrie.

H ANS G NTHER VON D INCKLAGE : Charming, forty-something German diplomat, best known for his success with the ladies and his scandalous wartime liaison with fashion designer C OCO C HANEL . Resident playboy spy of the Htel Ritz, he was a man of uncertain loyalties.

H ANS -J RGEN S OEHRING : German Luftwaffe officer and wartime lover of the famous French film star A RLETTY .

D IETRICH VON C HOLTITZ : In charge of Paris during the last days of the occupation, the German general who defied A DOLF H ITLER and refused to burn Parisperhaps not entirely out of altruism.

W ILHELM C ANARIS : Head of the German intelligence offices at the Abwehr in Paris, he played a dark game of counterintelligence as a British double agent until his discovery and arrest in the winter of 1944.

A RNO B REKER : Hitlers Michelangelo and a card-carrying member of the Nazi Party, he hobnobbed in the Paris art world during the 1920s and 1930s, becoming friends with J EAN C OCTEAU and P ABLO P ICASSO , for whom his wife, Demetra, modeled. In 1942, he returned to occupied Paris for a celebrated art exhibit during the season that became the high-water mark of collaboration.

T HE P OLITICIANS

G ENERAL C HARLES DE G AULLE : Cantankerous, patriotic leader of the Free French government-in-exile, whose views of the liberation of Paris were increasingly at odds with the military strategies of the Allies in that last summer of 1944.

W INSTON C HURCHILL : Eloquent and posh wartime prime minister of Great Britain and frequent Htel Ritz denizen, he knew C OCO C HANEL from summers on the French Riviera. Increasingly exasperated with the obstreperous C HARLES DE G AULLE , W INSTON C HURCHILL would have much preferred G EORGES M ANDEL in the French leadership and didnt mind saying so in the last days of the occupation.

G EORGES M ANDEL : Sartorially challenged Jewish-born journalist and former French minister, he was a long-term resident of the Htel Ritz and persuaded M ARIE -L OUISE R ITZ at the fall of France to keep the hotels doors open. Arrested early in the war and incarcerated as a prisoner by the Germans, his execution sealed the fate of his ancient archrival.

P IERRE L AVAL : Chain-smoking chief minister of the French government established at Vichy during the Nazi period; a brutal pragmatist and arch-collaborator, often found at the Htel Ritz. He amassed great personal power and was responsible for the deportation of Jewish children from France but claimed he was only a trustee in bankruptcy.

P AUL M ORAND : French diplomat and writer, friend of C OCO C HANEL , J EAN C OCTEAU , and M ARCEL P ROUST , he was the P RINCESS S OUTZO s secret lover and later husband; under her influence, he took the side of Vichy France during the occupation.

T HE A MERICAN W AR P ERSONNEL AND C ORRESPONDENTS

R OBERT C APA : Courageous, charismatic, and dangerously handsome Hungarian-born American war photographer, he quarreled bitterly with E RNEST H EMINGWAY in the days before the liberation of Paris. I NGRID B ERGMAN s lover, he was part of the complicated tangle of loyalties and betrayals that ended E RNEST H EMINGWAY s third marriage.

M ARTHA G ELLHORN : American war correspondent and E RNEST H EMINGWAY s third wife, she was vivacious, witty, fiercely independent, and the unknowing target of M ARLENE D IETRICH s devious sexual jealousy.

L EE M ILLER : Famously beautiful American photographer and war correspondent for Vogue , friend of P ABLO P ICASSO ; like American journalist H ELEN K IRKPATRICK , she reported on the liberation of Paris.

M ARY W ELSH : A perky and cute American dame journalist with a penchant for frank talk and for going braless under tight sweaters. She had a wartime affair with E RNEST H EMINGWAY at the Htel Ritz and went on to become the fourth wife of the famous writer. Cozy with M ARLENE D IETRICH but scorned by R OBERT C APA , she, too, reported firsthand on the liberation of Paris.