Coco Chanel_ An Intimate Life - Lisa Chaney [167]
The apparently relaxed cultural policy of the conquerors emerged from the principle that cultural distractions would keep the population unaware and contented. Meanwhile, the real attitude of the Germans toward French culture was a divided one, involving jealousy and contempt. There was jealousy of the preeminence of French culture in Europe combined with contempt for its perceived artistic decadence. German Francophilia was, then, double sided: admiration coexisting with an attitude of superiority. And those very French attributes that made the country so attractive—the refinement and douceur de vivre, the pleasure of civilized living—were also what condemned her to the second rank in the eyes of her invaders. However, a good number of intellectuals and artists were so relieved at the urbanity and admiration shown by some of their masters they failed to observe what actually lay beneath. Serge Lifar and Jean Cocteau, who continued working, like many artists before and after them, were staggeringly politically naive. What we are to make of the record of Gabrielle’s war years, however, remains to be seen.
Late in that summer of 1940, when Gabrielle had been reinstated at the Ritz, having accepted the one small room offered her, she sent all her best furniture back to her apartment above the salon on rue Cambon. And whatever her private thoughts about the occupation, there were two immediate tasks Gabrielle was now obliged to fulfill. One was a task she wished to perform; the other was an onerous one she was forced into.
When she had closed her couture house, her workers had been left without work or compensation. After the armistice, when the German propaganda campaign was intent on having it appear that France was getting back on its feet, educational establishments, businesses, the law courts, et cetera, were reopened. And at this point, Gabrielle’s rejected workforce succeeded in taking her to an industrial tribunal. Under the excuse of “act of war” or “emergency action,” Gabrielle had dismissed them without any notice or compensation. The court rejected this plea, and she was obliged to pay her employees the wages they were due.
Gabrielle’s second duty was to find her nephew. That September of 1940, when the Germans began releasing most of the three hundred thousand pre-armistice prisoners, her imprisoned nephew, André, was not among them. Preoccupied about his delicate health, his aunt was determined to bring about his release. A young aristocrat of her acquaintance, Louis de Vaufreland, told her he knew a German who might be able to help her. This gentleman was named Hans Günther, Baron von Dincklage. He spoke fluent French and English (his mother was English) and was the archetypal Aryan. Tall, blond, blue-eyed von Dincklage was the embodiment of entertaining charm. He suggested that the person Gabrielle needed was an old friend of his, a cavalry captain, Theodor Momm.9
Momm’s family was in textiles, and he had been deputed to mobilize the French textile industries, with a view to siphoning off the profits for the German war effort. Gabrielle’s persuasion was effective, and Momm reopened a small textile mill in the north of France. He then convinced his superiors that the owner was the famous Chanel, and that her nephew was the person needed to run the reinstated mill. Gabrielle was hugely relieved when André was at last released.
By this time, Gabrielle and von Dincklage had had cause to meet on a number of occasions. Gabrielle found the German’s charm and well-bred attentiveness throughout these proceedings most