Table Of ContentALSO BY HAL VAUGHAN
Doctor to the Resistance
FDR’s 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 Chanel’s secret war / by Hal Vaughan.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-95703-0
1. Chanel, Coco, 1883–1971. 2. Fashion designers—France—Biography. 3.
World War, 1939–1945—Secret service—Germany. 4. Espionage, German—
History—20th century.
I. Title.
TT505.C45V38 2011
746.9′2092—dc23
[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.
—SHAKESPEARE, THE TEMPEST
CONTENTS
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
List of Illustrations
PROLOGUE
ONE: METAMORPHOSIS—GABRIELLE BECOMES COCO
TWO: THE SCENT OF A WOMAN
THREE: COCO’S GOLDEN DUKE
FOUR: A HOLLYWOOD DIVERTISSEMENT
FIVE: EXIT PAUL, ENTER SPATZ
SIX: AND THEN THE WAR CAME
SEVEN: PARIS OCCUPIED—CHANEL A REFUGEE
EIGHT: DINCKLAGE MEETS HITLER; CHANEL BECOMES
AN ABWEHR AGENT
NINE: CHECKMATED BY THE WERTHEIMERS
TEN: A MISSION FOR HIMMLER
ELEVEN: COCO’S LUCK
TWELVE: COMEBACK COCO
EPILOGUE
Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
ILLUSTRATIONS
1.1 Boy Capel, Léon de Laborde, and Chanel, ca. 1908. (Edmonde Charles-
Roux collection) 1.2 Arthur “Boy” Capel with Chanel, Balsan’s Château
Royallieu. (Collection Sirot-Angel) 1.3 Cartoonist SEM’s illustration of
Chanel at Boy Capel’s mercy, ca. 1910. (SPADEM, Paris) 2.1 Misia
Godebska, 1905. (Lebrecht Music & Arts)
2.2 Composer Igor Stravinsky and ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, Paris, 1911.
(Lebrecht Music & Arts/Corbis) 2.3 Misia dressed as a man, ca. 1910.
(Lebrecht Music & Arts)
2.4 Lieutenant Hans Günther von Dincklage and fellow officers, ca. 1917.
(Courtesy Michael Foedrowitz) 2.5 Chanel, 1920. (Pictures, Inc./Getty)
2.6 Impresario Sergei Diaghilev and composer Igor Stravinsky, Seville.
(Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images) 2.7 Jean Cocteau with Lydia
Sokolova, Anton Dolin, Leon Woizikowsky, and Bronislava Nijinska,
London. (Photo by Sasha. Hulton Archive/Getty) 2.8 Grand Duke
Dimitri, 1910. (RIA Novosti)
2.9 The hallmark Chanel No. 5 flacon. (Musée Carnavalet/Roger-Viollet)
2.10 Pierre Wertheimer, 1928. (Keystone/Gamma Rapho)
2.11 The poet Pierre Reverdy, 1940. (Albert Harlingue/Roger-Viollet)
3.1 Lady Dunn with Chanel and her dog Gigot. (Condé Nast Archive/Corbis)
3.2 Bendor, Duke of Westminster, and Chanel at the Grand National
racetrack, May 1924. (Hulton Archive/Getty) 3.3 Chanel and Vera Bate,
ca. 1925.
3.4 Chanel and Sir Winston Churchill at the Duke of Westminster’s Eaton
Hall, 1929. (Hugo Vickers Collection) 3.5 Chanel in hunting dress with
Winston Churchill and his son, Randolph, in France, 1928.
(UPI/Bettmann News Photos, New York) 3.6 Serge Lifar, as Vestris,
wearing a costume designed by Chanel, June 1939. (Boris
Lipnitzki/Roger-Viollet) 3.7 Maximiliane von Schoenebeck, “Catsy,” the
wife of Baron von Dincklage, ca. 1930. (Photo by Walter Bondy. Ville
de Toulon, France, Bibliothèque Municipale, Fonds Bondy) 3.8 French
naval lieutenant Charles Coton and wife, Léa, mid-1930s. (Courtesy
Walter Bondy) 4.1 With Ina Claire, Hollywood, 1931.
(Bettmann/Corbis)
4.2 Gloria Swanson in Tonight or Never. (United Artists/Photofest) 4.3
Robert Greig and Gloria Swanson in Tonight or Never. (United
Artists/Photofest) 4.4 Paul Iribe, 1924. (Paramount Pictures/Photofest)
4.5 Mila Parély and Nora Gregor in Rules of the Game, 1939. (Cine Classics
Inc./Photofest) 4.6 Madge Evans, Ina Claire, and Joan Blondel in the
1932 film The Greeks Had a Word for Them. (United Artists/Photofest)
5.1 Suzanne and Otto Abetz with René de Chambrun, September 1941.
(Roger-Viollet) 5.2 Baron von Dincklage, ca. 1935. (Courtesy Mme
Edmonde Charles-Roux.) 5.3 Le Témoin illustration.
5.4 “Spatz” von Dincklage and Hélène Dessoffy, the French Riviera, ca.
1938. (Photo from Them, by Francine du Plessix Gray) 6.1 Chanel’s
employees struck and closed her business, 1936. (Keystone/Gamma-
Rapho) 6.2 Misia Sert, 1937. (Photo François Kollar)
6.3 The Duke of Windsor and his bride, the former Wallis Simpson, greeted
by Adolf Hitler, 1936. (Courtesy Archives Ullstein Bild) 7.1 Chanel’s
grand-niece Gabrielle Palasse. (Mme Gabrielle Palasse Labrunie private
collection) 7.2 André Palasse, Chanel’s nephew, Paris. (Mme Gabrielle
Palasse Labrunie private collection) 7.3 Nazi führer Adolf Hitler, Eiffel
Tower, June 1940.
7.4 The Nazi swastika above the building of the French Interior Ministry in
occupied Paris, January 1940. (Ullstein Bild/Roger-Viollet) 7.5 German
officers, Paris Opéra, ca. 1940. (Keystone France/Gamma-Rapho) 7.6
Correspondence from German Military Headquarters, Paris. (Archives
nationales, Paris, AJ/40/871) 7.7 List of civilians allowed by Nazis to
room at the Hôtel Ritz. (CARAN AJ/40/871) 7.8 Dining room of the
Hôtel Ritz, 1939. (Roger-Viollet)
7.9 Starving Parisians searching for food and scraps in the garbage,
September 1942. (LAPI/Roger-Viollet) 8.1 French document revealing
Vaufreland was “an intimate friend of Chanel.” (Centre historique des
archives)
8.2 Dincklage’s protégé, Baron Louis de Vaufreland. (French National
Archives) 8.3 Police intelligence report showing Chanel’s Abwehr agent
number and code name. (Préfecture de Police, Paris, BA1990, “Chanel”)
8.4 Sonderführer Albert Notterman, 1947. (Private collection)
9.1 H. Gregory Thomas, World’s Fair, New York, 1939. (New York World’s
Fair 1939–1940 records, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New
York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.)
10.1 Abwehr major Theodor Momm, ca. 1947. (Courtesy Michael
Foedrowitz.) 10.2 German Abwehr agent Count Joseph von Ledebur-
Wicheln, 1944. (National Archives, Kew) 10.3 SS headquarters, Berlin.
