Did Coco Chanel collaborate with the Nazis during WW2?
Coco Chanel is one of the most famous fashion designers of the 20th century, known for her haute couture and legendary fragrances. Her life during the Second World War, however, has led to much intrigue – for very different reasons. Nige Tassell explores the real-life figure featured in Apple TV+’s The New Look…
Coco Chanel is one of the most famous fashion designers of the 20th century, and was a rival of another fashion titan – Christian Dior. She's become known for her haute couture and legendary fragrances, particularly Chanel No. 5.
Chanel's life during the Second World War is depicted in Apple TV+’s series The New Look, released on 14 February. Set against the backdrop of occupied France, it explores the darker side to Chanel – including her collaboration with the Nazis.
Coco Chanel's early life
Born Gabrielle Boheur Chanel in western France in 1883, Coco Chanel would become one of the most famous fashion designers of the 20th century.
Having grown up in straitened circumstances (her father was an itinerant peddler of clothes, her mother was a laundrywoman), she acquired the nickname ‘Coco’ during her time as a café singer in Paris in her twenties, her signature song being Has anyone seen Coco?
Also working as a seamstress by day, Chanel became the mistress of Étienne Balsan, an heir to a textile empire and, accordingly, began to revolve around higher social circles.
A subsequent affair with a wealthy Englisman, Arthur ‘Boy’ Capel’, brought his investment in her career as a designer – and the opening of her first shop in 1910.
Her reputation swiftly grew and, for the next couple of decades, Chanel’s designs became known for their relaxed chic. In 1921, she also launched the legendary fragrance Chanel No 5.
Did Coco Chanel really collaborate with Nazis?
When war broke out in 1939, Chanel brought her highly successful business to a close, convinced that fashion was an uncommercial pursuit in time of war. Such was the extent of her empire that as many as 4,000 employees were suddenly out of work.
Chanel later expressed her regret at closing down her fashion house. “How could I suppose there would still be people who would buy dresses?” she explained. “I was so stupid, such a dummy about life … Some people sold dresses all during the war.”
After the Germans invaded France in the spring of 1940 and proceeded to occupy more than half of the country, including the capital, Chanel remained in Paris. She lived in the Hotel Ritz in the city, an establishment used as Nazi headquarters when they first invaded.
Described in French intelligence papers as a “vicious anti-Semite”, Chanel seemingly felt at home among these German officers. Indeed, she lobbied the Nazis to remove the Jewish directors of the highly profitable fragrance business Parfums Chanel: the Wertheimer family.
Further illustrating her compliance with the German occupation of her homeland, to oust the Wertheimers, she enlisted the services of the lawyer René de Chambrun – the son-in-law of Pierre Laval, the prime minister of the puppet Vichy Government.
Did Coco Chanel have a relationship with a Nazi known as ‘Spatz’?
While living at the Hotel Ritz, Chanel began an affair with Baron Hans Günther von Dincklage, the press attaché at the German embassy in Paris.
Known as ‘Spatz’ (meaning ‘sparrow’), von Dincklage was also a spy, and reportedly the conduit by which Chanel was recruited into the German intelligence services.
Their relationship provided the title of Hal Vaughan’s 2011 biography of Chanel’s wartime years: Sleeping With The Enemy.
Did Coco Chanel travel to Madrid under the command of the Nazis?
In Sleeping With The Enemy Vaughan reveals, through the use of declassified papers, that Chanel had not only been issued with a spy number, but that she had also been given a codename (‘Westminster’).
Further confirmation of her collaboration came in 2014 when more documents were declassified, which indicated that Chanel had been set to Madrid by the Nazis to meet with the British ambassador, and apparently act as a secret negotiator for peace in the case that an Allied victory looked inevitable.
However, this mission – Operation Modellhut, or Operation Model Hat – ran into difficulties when Chanel’s close friend, Vera Bate Lombardi, who had also been recruited and accompanied Chanel to Madrid, denounced the designer as a Nazi spy to officials at the British embassy in the Spanish capital.
Who was Vera Bate Lombardi?
Referred to in the new Apple TV+ series The New Look as Elsa Lombardi, Vera Bate Lombardi was born Vera Arkwright.
Very much part of the British elite, Vera Bate Lombardi was hired by Coco Chanel in 1920 as a PR executive for the House of Chanel.
Their subsequent deep friendship brought Chanel into contact with the very highest echelons of British society, including an introduction to the future King Edward VIII.
In 1943, Lombardi was arrested by the Italian police force, who suspected her of spying for Britain, though she was released without charge a week later.
The following year, she accompanied Chanel to Madrid on what she believed was a business trip, but which was actually an espionage mission.
While in the Spanish capital, Lombardi’s declaration to British officials that Chanel was a Nazi spy scuppered the operation. In 1948, Lombardi was dead. The real cause of death has never been announced.
Was Coco Chanel arrested for her involvement with the Nazis?
Although she underwent questioning before the Free French Purge Committee in the autumn of 1944, the lack of definitive evidence against Chanel in respect of her work with the Germans saw that no further action was taken.
Strong suspicions abounded that powerful figures – including Winston Churchill, who was an old friend of Chanel’s – had intervened to secure her release.
What was Coco Chanel’s life like after the war?
Chanel reopened her fashion house in the mid-1950s, despite by that time being in her seventies. Other than a comparatively short time spent living in Switzerland, Chanel remained a resident of the Hotel Ritz in Paris until her death.
How did Coco Chanel die?
Coco Chanel died from a heart attack in her room in January 1971.
She never had children, and her not-inconsiderable estate was inherited by her nephew André (whom she had cared for after the death of his mother), and her two great-nieces.
Period drama podcast episodes
Member exclusive | Browse our archive of podcasts that explore behind the scenes of the much-loved period dramas, from Bridgerton to Masters of the Air...
The first three episodes of The New Look are available to stream on Apple TV+ from 14 February, with new episodes airing weekly until 3 April.
Authors
A journalist for more than 30 years, Nige is also a prolific author, his latest book being a history of the national stadium – Field Of Dreams: 100 Years Of Wembley In 100 Matches (Simon & Schuster). Nige has written extensively for the BBC History portfolio for many years, covering a range of subjects and eras – from the fall of the Incas and the art of the zncient Greeks to the Harlem Renaissance and the Cuban Revolution.
Get exclusive access to Ruth Goodman’s six-week Academy course on Victorian Life, featuring two live Q&As + a book of your choice when you subscribe to BBC History Magazine
