Image by joanneteh_32(loving Laduree) via Flickr
The dark side to Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel brought out into the sunlight...Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel was feted around the world as a pioneering fashion icon who changed the way women dressed and thought about themselves. Many biographies have been written and movies made about her incredible career - but there is a dark side that was apparently hidden but has now come out into the sunlight and the gaze of the world media.
Does it matter now many decades later? Of course it does and she will have to accept it for what it was - a dark chapter in her life the world has a right to know, and has found out. Chanel had a German lover and more intrigue followed.
It was reportedly known during WW11 that in Paris Coco Chanel had a German lover - Baron Hans Gunther von Dincklage, who was portrayed by many biographers as a blond, blue-eyed charmer - a kind of tennis-playing playboy type. But they didn't know the real von Dincklage, either!
He was actually a high-powered member of the Nazi Party, a third generation war hero and had been a German intelligence officer (the Abwehr) sinjce 1919, and had met top Nazi leaders Hitler and Goebbels in 1941.
He had been Coco Chanel's lover for 9 years, reportedly one of a long stream of rich men who had furthered her career.
And Dincklage was the reason Chanel was able to live at the "Ritz" - the Ritz Hotel in Paris, which the Nazis had requisitioned for their exclusive use. He was also the recruiter for her secret career - spying for the Abwehr, and ultimately going on two missions to Madrid
.
When researching for his now published book, " Sleeping with the Enemy", American author, Hal Vaughan, was researching the activities of an American intelligence officer H. Gregory Thomas, when he came across an intriguing document showing that in 1940, he Thomas, had been sent to Paris by the Wertheimer Bros, 70% owners of Chanel's perfume business, to steal the formula for Chanel No 5. During this research he came across a document that proved Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel had spied for the Nazis - she was Agent F-7124 in the Abwehr's Berlin register. He soon realised that there were many reports about Chanel.
" One must not let oneself be forgotten, one must stay on the toboggan. The toboggan is what people who are talked about ride on. One must get a front seat and not let oneself be put out of it"
Coco Chanel
She once bragged that she was able to launch the House of Chanel "Because two gentlemen were outbidding each other for my hot little body."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/world-war-2/8704910/Coco-Chanel-was-a-Nazi-agent-during-Second-World-War.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coco_Chanel
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/3002772/coco_before_chanel_movie_trailer_1/
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