2. How Coco Chanel Tried to Profit From the Holocaust
As her native France groaned under Nazi occupation, Coco Chanel became the mistress of Baron Gunther von Dincklage, a diplomat and German military intelligence operative. Before the war, the majority owner of Parfums Chanel, the company that marketed Chanel No. 5, was a Jewish businessman named Pierre Wertheimer. The Nazis routinely confiscated Jewish property and gave it to Aryans. Chanel petitioned the Nazis that since she was Aryan, they ought to seize Wertheimer’s share of Parfums Chanel and hand it over to her.
Unbeknownst to her, Wertheimer had guessed that the Nazis would confiscate Jewish properties. So before they got around to it, he transferred legal ownership of his business entities to a Christian French industrialist. That industrialist had more integrity than Chanel, and returned the businesses to Wertheimer when France was liberated. After the war, French intelligence described the fashion icon as a Hitler fan and “vicious anti-Semite“. Coco Chanel was more than that: as seen below, she was a collaborator and traitor who had directly worked for the Nazi occupiers.
