A book released this week alleges that the late French fashion designer Coco Chanel was fiercely anti-Semitic and served as a Nazi spy during World War II.

American historian Hal Vaughan's newest book, Sleeping with the Enemy: Coco Chanel's Secret Wars, contends Chanel was an agent of Germany's Abwehr military intelligence organization.

Vaughan says Chanel was recruited by her lover, a German master spy named Baron Hans Gunther von Dincklage, and undertook a number of missions during the war.

The Associated Press says the book is partly based on archival documents from Germany, France, Britain and Switzerland.

However, the House of Chanel in France says the book's allegations should not go unchallenged. They say nearly 60 books have been written about Chanel and encourage readers to consult what they called, “one of the more serious ones.”

Chanel died in 1971.