As per the documentary, the involvement of Chanel with the Nazis started near the time of the downfall of the French army in the year 1940. Shortly after that, she came back to Paris and moved into the Ritz Hotel which was serving as the Luftwaffe’s French headquarters at that point in time.
Chanel soon started an affair with Baron Hans Gunther von Dincklage, who was a senior Gestapo officer. In addition to this, she became closely acquainted with the top ranked Nazis. In 1943, she was sent to Madrid where she took advantage of her past acquaintance with Winston Churchill and tried to strike an armistice with British officers located there.
Supposedly, Churchill ignored the offer, with Henry Gidel a historian saying that Chanel showed unbelievable delusions of grandeur and naivety in thinking that she could change the mind of Churchill.
The latest findings reveal that Chanel went by a code name ‘Westminster’ while working for Nazis. This code name was in reference to her 1920s affair with the Duke of Westminster.
According to the Nazi’s records, F-7124 was Chanel’s official Abwehr number. For the past seven decades it has been held secretly in the French Ministry of Defence archives.
Historian ******* Ferrand hosted the documentary and claimed that in order to reclaim the perfume business she sold to a Jewish family in 1924 by using her Nazi influence.
According to the documentary two invitations were accepted by Edith Piaf (see picture above) to perform at private functions of Nazi
As per the documentary, some of the celebrities who were linked to the Nazis based on the philosophy that their careers flourished in occupied France were: singer Maurice Chevalier (left) and playwright Sacha Guitry (right).
According to Ferrand, Chanel – the famous fashion designer thought that Nazi rules such as: banning Jews owning businesses may result in the company being taken away from them and given back to her, but it did not happen. The sakes of Wertheimer family in Chanel perfumes were already sold to a German businessman.
The claims of the documentary that Chevalier, Piaf and Guitry were connected to the Nazis were comparatively less
The documentary’s claims that Piaf, Chevalier and Guitry were linked to the Nazis were not discussed in detail and mainly based on the concept that the celebrities’ careers prospered in occupied France. Piaf accepted two invitations to Nazi functions of private nature.
According to the documentary, to rebuild the country’s reputation, the officials in France (post-war) removed all the records of the links of these stars with Nazis and invented ties to the Resistance movement.
