Ah, the smell of MSM perfume in the morning.
"Book alleges Coco Chanel, fashion icon, spied for Nazis; Author cites new documents; firm decries accusation" August 18, 2011|By Jenny Barchfield, Associated Press
PARIS - Coco Chanel: A fashion icon whose name has become shorthand for timeless French chic, a shrewd businesswoman who overcame a childhood of poverty to build a luxury supernova and … a Nazi spy?
A new book by a Paris-based American historian suggests Chanel not only had a wartime affair with a German aristocrat and spy, but that she herself was also an agent of Germany’s Abwehr military intelligence organization and a rabid anti-Semite.
Doubts about Chanel’s loyalties during World War II have long festered, but “Sleeping with the Enemy: Coco Chanel’s Secret War’’ goes well beyond those previous allegations, citing as evidence documents culled from archives around the world.
The book, published in the United States on Tuesday by Knopf, has ruffled feathers in France, where the luxury industry is a pillar of the economy and Chanel is widely regarded as the crowning jewel. The House of Chanel was quick to react, saying in a statement that “more than 57 books have been written about Gabrielle Chanel… . We would encourage you to consult some of the more serious ones.’’
Hal Vaughan, an 84-year-old World War II veteran and longtime journalist who previously wrote two other history books, insists that he is serious. “Sleeping with the Enemy’’ is the fruit of more than four years of intense labor born out of an accidental find in France’s national police archive, he said.
“I was looking for something else and I come across this document saying ‘Chanel is a Nazi agent, her number is blah, blah, blah and her pseudonym is Westminster,’ ’’ Vaughan told the Associated Press. “I look at this again and I say, ‘What the hell is this?’ I couldn’t believe my eyes!
“Then I really started hunting through all of the archives, in the United States, in London, in Berlin, and in Rome and I come across not one, but 20, 30, 40 absolutely solid archival materials on Chanel and her lover, Baron Hans Gunther von Dincklage, who was a professional Abwehr spy,’’ Vaughan said.
Born in 1883 in a hospice for the poor in France’s western Pays de la Loire region, Gabrielle Chanel had remade herself into the famed couturiere and proudly independent Coco Chanel by the outbreak of World War II. During the conflict, she holed up with von Dincklage, a dashing German officer 12 years her junior who was one in her long string of lovers, in Paris’s Ritz Hotel, which was under Nazi control.
The book alleges that in 1940, Chanel was recruited into the Abwehr - her nom de guerre borrowed from another of her lovers, the Duke of Westminster. A year later, she traveled to Spain on a spy mission - on condition that the Nazis release her nephew from a military internment camp - and later went to Berlin on the orders of a top SS general, the book says. It also suggests that Chanel’s alleged anti-Semitism pushed her to try to capitalize on laws allowing for the expropriation of Jewish property to wrest control of the Chanel perfume lines from the Wertheimer brothers, a Jewish family who had helped make her Chanel No. 5 a worldwide best-seller.
And now Lauder is the cosmetics king, isn't he?
The Chanel statement rebutted the accusation, although it added that company officials have yet to read the book and had seen only media excerpts.
That has never stopped anyone in government from attacking "conspiracy theorists."
In truth, the real argument should be realists against liars.
For openers, we have the immutable laws of physics on our side; they have three skyscrapers in their own footprints because of jet fuel fires?
“She would hardly have formed a relationship with the family’’ - which currently owns the entire Chanel brand empire - “or counted Jewish people among her close friends and professional partners,’’ it says.
Yeah, Hitler had some, too.
A US-based organization of Holocaust survivors said it was “shocked’’ by the book’s allegations and called on Chanel to launch an independent investigation into the book’s accusations.
“The documents on Ms. Chanel’s past are too serious and historically important to be cavalierly dismissed by the fashion house without any effort to confirm their veracity through objective research,’’ said Elan Steinberg, vice-president of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants.
Of course, if you do objective research into their tragedy in the slave labor camps the cries of antisemitism rise and you may well be jailed in Europe.
After the war, Chanel was arrested and released hours later, saved by “the intervention of her old friend Winston Churchill,’’ the press release for the book said. She fled to Switzerland.
Churchill was a Nazi sympathizer?
Asked why the book had turned up so much more dirt than the scores of previous biographies, Vaughan had two explanations. First, many of the documents he cited had only recently been declassified. Second, he said, many people have a vested interest in protecting Chanel’s aura of unsullied chic....
And what are the vested interests of today trying to protect, hmmm?
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Oh, there is the feeling of love in the air:
"DA inquires about Strauss-Kahn talks" August 20, 2011|Associated Press
NEW YORK - Prosecutors are exploring whether a lawyer for the hotel maid who accused Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault discussed the possibility of a financial settlement and suggested she could back away from the criminal case, people familiar with the matter said yesterday. The woman’s lawyer sternly denied it.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office is looking into whether housekeeper Nafitassou Diallo’s lawyer and Strauss-Kahn’s attorneys talked about a potential deal after prosecutors began developing questions about her credibility, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity. It was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
“The allegation against me is absolutely false,’’ Diallo’s lawyer, Kenneth Thompson, said in an e-mail yesterday. The DA’s office and Strauss-Kahn lawyer declined to comment.
The criminal case against the former International Monetary Fund leader is on uncertain ground after prosecutors said Diallo had lied to them about her background and was inconsistent about what she did immediately after the alleged May 14 attack. Strauss-Kahn denies the allegations, and his lawyers are urging prosecutors to drop the case.
Diallo and Thompson have publicly pressed prosecutors to keep pursuing the case, saying her account of Strauss-Kahn forcing her to perform oral sex in his Sofitel hotel suite is true. Diallo also sued Strauss-Kahn earlier this month, seeking unspecified damages. His lawyers have said the suit is meritless and shows Diallo is out to make money....
Who isn't?
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Related: New Suit For Strauss-Kahn
Maybe not:
"Strauss-Kahn charges may be dropped" by Associated Press / August 21, 2011
NEW YORK - The lawyer for the woman who accused former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault said yesterday that he thinks prosecutors plan to dismiss some or all of the charges.
Attorney Kenneth Thompson told The New York Times that he got a letter from an assistant district attorney offering to meet with his client tomorrow, the day before Strauss-Kahn’s next scheduled court appearance.
The letter was written in terse tones and said the purpose was to discuss what would happen in court the next day.
“Should she not be available or should she fail to attend, I will assume that she does not wish to take advantage of this opportunity,’’ wrote Assistant District Attorney Artie McConnell.
Thompson told the Times that he thinks prosecutors wouldn’t have asked for the meeting unless they planned to give her bad news about the case. Prosecutors had no comment....
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Okay, enough pillow talk.
Related: Sarkozy, Merkel want more unity
Hasn't there been enough of that?
"Nation reflects on legacy of wall
BERLIN - The Berlin Wall’s construction 50 years ago must be a constant reminder to citizens today to stand up for freedom and democracy, the city’s mayor said yesterday as a united Germany commemorated the bitter anniversary. Seeing Berlin divided by the wall tore apart the country and separated neighbors and families, Mayor Klaus Wowereit said at a televised event (AP)."
Yeah, division isn't that good, either.
Also see:
Germany challenges Facebook photo tags
Swiss near tax deal with Germany, Britain
