Coco Chanel spent the Second World War collaborating with the Nazis, says a new book.
According to US journalist Hal Vaughn, author of Sleeping With The Enemy: Coco Chanel’s Secret War, the fashion icon was “fiercely anti-Semitic long before it became a question of pleasing the Germans”.
“She became rich by catering to the very rich, and shared their dislike of Jews, trade unions, socialism, Freemasons, and communism.”
The book also claims that in 1940, Chanel was recruited into the Abwehr (German military intelligence) and had a lover, Baron Hans Gunther von Dincklage, who was honoured by Adolf Hitler during the war.
Vaughn, who lives in Paris, writes that Chanel collaborated and slept with the German agent and shared the opinions about Jews of her ex-lover, the Duke of Westminster.
The designer was labelled in Abwehr records as Agent F-7124, he writes. Chanel joins a host of celebrated French artists who allegedly collaborated with the Nazis, including Maurice Chevalier, Jean Cocteau, Sacha Guitry and Edith Piaf. - Mail on Sunday