In Lebensborn, the second book in the series The Addlestone Chronicles, I introduced readers to the anti-Nazi role that Dietrich Bonhoeffer played and contrasted it with the support that Coco Chanel gave to Hitler.
In the Historical Background section that followed the body of the novel, I wrote:
“Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s anti-Nazi efforts through the Lutheran Church are as described in this novel. He was arrested in April 1943 for his resistance activities, primarily aimed at opposing Hitler’s euthanasia program and the persecution and murder of Jews. He was executed by hanging on April 9, 1945, at Flossenbürg concentration camp, less than four months before the war in Europe ended.
Whereas Gabrielle Bonheur (Coco) Chanel was close to Hitler and had a romantic relationship with the German diplomat Baron Hans Günter Dincklage. She collaborated with the Gestapo during the German occupation of France. One of her missions in late 1943 was to bring a peace offer from the SS to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, with the aim of ending the war.
After the war, she was officially questioned but not charged as a collaborator due to the intervention of Winston Churchill. She decided to remain out of the public’s view, living in Lausanne, Switzerland, until 1954, when she returned to Paris to revive her fashion business. Newly released documents directly revealed that she worked for and with the Nazi secret intelligence service, Sicherheitsdienst, bringing messages from Hitler and the High Command to pro-Nazi sympathizers in Britain.”