Matt MacNabb - A Secret History of Brands - The Dark and Twisted Beginnings of the Brand Names We Know and Love

Coco Chanel may not have been regarded as the kindest person in the world and she was certainly a savvy opportunist to take advantage of the Nazi mandates, but that’s a far cry from making her a Nazi sympathiser, and certainly far away from any evidence that she was a Nazi spy. There had been whispers and rumours for decades about Chanel’s shady dealings throughout the Second World War, and certainly many suspected her involvement, but it wasn’t until recently that actual documented proof began to emerge when declassified French intelligence documents were discovered. These documents detailed not only an involvement with the Nazis, but her ascension into actual Nazi spy and the special secret mission that was crafted especially for her.

In 2016, Historians poring over hundreds of boxes of declassified government documents that had been provided to the French Defence Ministry’s archives back in 1999, discovered documents that proved the French secret services had suspicions about the extent of Chanel’s Nazi connections. These documents, now available to the public (but only in person), reveal a file on Coco Chanel that French intelligence had amongst their files on various celebrities whom they suspected of being Nazi sympathisers. One such document, from 1944, states that: ‘A source from Madrid informs us that Madame Chanel, in 1942–1943, was the mistress and agent of Baron Gunther Von Dincklage. Dincklage was the attaché to the German Embassy in Paris in 1935. He worked as a propagandist and was a suspected agent’ (translated from the original French).

A French television documentary titled L’Ombre D’un Doute - Paris and Les Artistes sous l’Occupation , which aired in late 2014 on France 3, provided further evidence as to the extent of Chanel’s involvement with the Nazi regime. Chanel was so involved with the Nazis that she wasn’t just dating a spy – she was one herself. Coco went by the code name ‘Westminster’, which was a reference to her previous relationship with the Duke of Westminster. Her Abwehr involvement was so deep that she was even assigned an agent number, F-7124, according to an official Nazi record. The records of this information were also uncovered in the archives at the French Ministry of Defence.

The idea that Coco Chanel was a Nazi sympathiser, and even a Nazi spy, has only surfaced in recent years, thanks to the declassified French intelligence documents. Coco was, quite literally, sleeping with the enemy. There is an assumption to be made that when someone aligned themselves with the Nazis, they were automatically an anti-Semite. It is easy to jump to that conclusion, but in the case of Coco Chanel I found it difficult to find any evidence that she harboured any particular ill will towards Jews. Coco Chanel may indeed have hated the Jews, and certainly many of her biographers assert this as a fact, but I am reluctant to label anyone without actual proof – or at least a direct quote or two. Obviously, she was no fan of the Jewish family who financed her Parfums Chanel Company, but beyond that I could find no quotes from Chanel to corroborate her being anti-Semitic. Chanel was a cunning opportunist through and through and her work with the Nazis may have been more about the opportunities and advancement it could provide her with over any political or social agenda.

Chanel was the subject of a covert Nazi mission in 1943 by the name of Modellhut (‘model hat’). This mission was planned for some time and apparently involved Chanel first travelling to Germany to have a personal meeting with infamous Nazi Heinrich Himmler to plan the details of the mission. We may not be privy to all of the duties that Chanel might have filled as an agent to the Nazis, but we do know about this one key mission, which took place in Madrid (as referenced in the document mentioned above). She travelled to Madrid in 1943 with Hans, with the mission of using her past acquaintanceship with Winston Churchill to persuade him to a ceasefire with Germany through a personal letter, with the hopes of ending the aggressions between England and Germany. In a flurry of arrogance, Chanel was convinced that Churchill would listen to her as a voice of reason. Churchill didn’t see it the same way and the deal was ignored.

Chanel was sent on this rather odd mission, because the reality was that Hitler didn’t have a mind to continue using his resources in a war with England, but would rather prefer they concede and allow the Nazis to further pursue their intended target: Stalin and the Soviet Union. Reportedly, Hitler even sent his number two, Rudolf Hess, into Britain in 1941 with an offer of peace. Churchill likely refused these ploys for a number of reasons, partly because he knew Hitler wasn’t to be trusted and there were no guarantees that the sights of the Nazis wouldn’t simply be turned right back on England when they were done with the Soviets.

The documentary series also claims that the post-war records about the involvement of Coco Chanel, and other French celebrities, with the Nazis was scrubbed from existence to preserve the pride of the French resistance and keep from demoralising the public and further tarnishing the spirit of the French people.

Once the Second World War finally came to a close and the Axis powers were defeated, it was time to rebuild Europe, mourn the losses and hold those still alive accountable for their vast and devastating war crimes. The Nuremberg trials were the world’s answer to justice and retribution for the Nazis and their cohorts. Throughout 1945 and 1946 the military tribunals were charged with prosecuting twenty-four members of the remaining Third Reich leadership. One person that was missing from any trials was, of course, Coco Chanel. Well, of course she was missing if the documents that detail her partnership with the Nazis were only recently uncovered, you say? Unfortunately, those documents were classified by the French. The French government took measures to erase the history of Chanel’s involvement with the German occupying forces in Paris.

French women who slept with, had relationships with, or were even so much as friendly with German soldiers were accused of ‘collaboration horizontale’. In 1944 approximately 35,000 women had their heads shaved by hoards of male French citizens. They were utterly humiliated, stripped naked, and sometimes even had swastikas painted on their bodies. A fate that Coco Chanel craftily avoided. The irony is that many German women suffered the same fate when they cavorted with the French troops as they invaded the Rhineland in 1923. The Nazi party would also make the shaving of women’s heads a public punishment for being involved with a non-Aryan. These outbursts of public shaming and humiliation weren’t condoned by everyone and many found them to be disgusting displays of misplaced anger or jealousy. The sad reality for many women during the occupation of France is that the only way for many of them to care for their children, or themselves, with their husbands away at war was to have a liaison with a German soldier.

This ill treatment would not be the fate of Coco Chanel. The natural assumption might be that someone who was so much in the public eye would be subjected to the same, if not much worse, treatment as any other woman who had openly cavorted with a member of the Third Reich. In reality, the worst that Coco Chanel got was a few days of minor inconvenience.

It was August of 1944 and the allied troops were approaching Paris; the region was about to be completely freed from Nazi control. Chanel didn’t remain in Paris during the allied liberation. According to her former maid, Germaine, Chanel got a call from someone passing on a secret message from the Duke of Westminster. The Duke was warning Chanel to get out of France urgently. In a matter of hours Coco was fleeing to Lausanne, Switzerland. There has been talk that Winston Churchill was responsible for shielding Chanel from much of the post-war fervour, while other sources suggest that her connections within the royal family may have had an impact in protecting certain members of the Windsor family’s Nazi collaborations.