Sleeping with the Enemy

By Hal Vaughan,

Book cover of Sleeping with the Enemy: Coco Chanel's Secret War

Book description

This explosive narrative reveals for the first time the shocking hidden years of Coco Chanel’s life: her collaboration with the Nazis in Paris, her affair with a master spy, and her work for the German military intelligence service and Himmler’s SS.

Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel was the high priestess of couture…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked Sleeping with the Enemy as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I have always adored the Chanel brand and have been intrigued by Coco Chanel’s childhood story and her rise to fame. Then to read the back story of her activities during World War 2 in Paris, I was gutted. The author depicts her as a full-on collaborator. All done in a bid to save her fortune, but at the expense of others. In this explosive narrative the author pieces together Chanel’s hidden years, her relationships with top-ranking Nazis, and her anti-Semitism.  

When the first Australian exhibition of the work of fashion designer Gabrielle (Coco) Chanel (1910-1971) opened at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne in July 2021, the focus was on the legendary fame of the Parisian fashion icon. Chanel was and still is the figurehead of haute couture. At the same time, as historians and observers interested in fashion have noted with disappointment, the Nazi past of the fashion icon Chanel is still being ignored.

Yet the author and journalist Hal W. Vaughan uncovered the facts in his book facts that are not read with pleasure in the Parisian…

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