Mata Hari
Mata Hari, born Margaretha Geertruida Zelle on August 7, 1876, in the Netherlands, was a renowned exotic dancer and accused spy during World War I. After a challenging early life marked by family tragedy and an abusive marriage, she reinvented herself in Paris as Mata Hari, which translates to "eye of the dawn" in Malay. Her performances, characterized by erotic striptease, garnered immense popularity across Europe and attracted numerous high-profile lovers, including military officers.
In 1917, she was arrested by French authorities on charges of espionage, accused of relaying military secrets to Germany. Despite her claims of innocence and assertions that she worked for French intelligence, she was tried in a closed military court without a fair chance to defend herself and was ultimately executed by firing squad. Following her execution, Mata Hari became a legendary figure, often depicted as the archetypal femme fatale. The true extent of her espionage activities remains disputed, with subsequent investigations revealing a lack of concrete evidence against her. Today, she is remembered not only for her life and career but also as a symbol of the complexities surrounding issues of justice and gender in wartime.
Subject Terms
Mata Hari
- Born: August 7, 1876
- Birthplace: Leeuwarden, Holland, Netherlands
- Died: October 15, 1917
- Place of death: Vincennes, France
Dutch spy
Major offense: Passing Allied information to German intelligence during World War I
Active: 1916–17
Locale: The Hague, Netherlands; Paris; and Spain
Sentence: Death by firing squad
Early Life
On August 7, 1876, Margaretha Geertruida Zelle, later known as Mata Hari, was born to a prosperous Dutch hat merchant named Adam Zelle and his wife, Antje Johannes van der Meulen. In 1899, Adam Zelle’s business went bankrupt, and he abandoned his family. When she was fifteen, Margaretha’s mother died, and she went to live with relatives. At eighteen, she married a thirty-nine-year-old Dutch military officer, Rudolph MacLeod, who was on sick leave from service in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia). They lived in Java and Sumatra from 1897 to 1902 and had two children. In 1899, both their children were poisoned, possibly by an angry servant; their son died. They returned to Europe, and Margaretha left MacLeod, an alcoholic and abusive husband who kept custody of their daughter.
In 1905, Margaretha moved to Paris, where she began dancing professionally, first as Lady MacLeod and finally as Mata Hari, which means “eye of the dawn” in Malay. Assuming the persona of an Eastern princess, she made her debut as an exotic temple dancer at the Guimet Museum in Paris on March 13, 1905. Her erotic striptease soon became popular throughout Europe. She attracted numerous lovers, including German and French military officers.
Criminal Career
Many unanswered questions surrounded Mata Hari’s alleged espionage activities during World War I. In 1916, one of her lovers, the German military attaché in Spain, suspected her of spying on him and sent radio messages to Berlin naming Mata Hari as German spy H-21, even though she had not passed sensitive military secrets to the Germans. He knew that the Allies could break the code and intercept the messages.
Mata Hari fell in love with Vadim de Masloff, a young Russian officer, and needed additional income to support her future life with her lover, so she proposed to spy for Captain Ladoux of French intelligence. Later, she claimed that the French had paid her to spy in German-occupied Belgium. British intelligence alerted the French about her activities with the German consul.
Legal Action and Outcome
On February 13, 1917, the French arrested Mata Hari on charges of espionage. While she awaited trial, the military tribunal’s chief investigator, Captain Pierre Bouchardon, interrogated her at least seventeen times.
On July 24–25, she was tried by a closed military court and found guilty of spying for Germany. According to military trial rules, her lawyer could not cross-examine the prosecution’s witnesses or even the defense’s own witnesses. Mata Hari was accused of betraying military secrets told to her by Allied military officers. She asserted her innocence and said that she had actually worked for French intelligence. The prosecution presented the intercepted German military radio messages that identified Mata Hari as Agent H-21 of the Cologne intelligence center. On October 15, 1917, Mata Hari was executed by a firing squad.
Impact
Within years after her execution, Mata Hari had become a legend, often considered the greatest woman spy in history. When she was arrested, she was already a famous exotic dancer who had turned striptease into an art form. After her execution, she became the symbol of the treacherous, seductive femme fatale. However, it remained debatable whether she had actually been a dangerous double agent or German spy. In 1999, previously sealed British intelligence files were opened and provided no actual proof of her guilt. There was also no hard evidence in French military records, so it appears there was a miscarriage of justice. In 2001, the Mata Hari Foundation and the town of Leeuwarden, Netherlands, asserted that she was a scapegoat and the victim of a state conspiracy and requested a new trial and pardon from the French Ministry of Justice.
Mata Hari has been portrayed in numerous films: Asta Nielsen played her in Mata Hari (1920), Magda Sonja in Mata Hari (1927), Greta Garbo in Mata Hari (1931), Marlene Dietrich in Dishonored (1931), Jeanne Moreau in Mata Hari Agent H 21 (1965), Zsa Zsa Gabor in the comedy Up the Front (1972), and Sylvia Kristel in Mata Hari (1985). In 2003, Maruschka Detmers starred in a television program, Mata Hari, La Vraie Histoire. In the twenty-first century, new books and films showed the continuing fascination with the famous femme fatale, including best-selling author Paulo Coelho's 2016 novel The Spy.
Bibliography
Bentley, Toni. Sisters of Salome. Yale UP, 2002. A former dancer, the author examines how Mata Hari and three other famous women portrayed the biblical femme fatale Salome and how their striptease performances influenced modern dance and feminism. Illustrated. Bibliography, illustrations, and index.
Coulson, Thomas. Mata Hari: Courtesan and Spy. 1930. Kessinger, 2004. Originally published in 1930, this biography was one of the books on which the 1931 Greta Garbo movie was based. Illustrated.
Howe, Russell Warren. Mata Hari: The True Story. Dodd, Mead, 1986. A readable biography based on extensive research, including access to sealed French records. The author concluded there had not been sufficient proof that Mata Hari was a spy. Index.
Ostrovsky, Erika. Eye of Dawn: The Rise and Fall of Mata Hari. Macmillan, 1978. A well-researched portrait of the woman behind the legend and the events contributing to her transformation into the infamous Mata Hari. Bibliography, index, illustrations.
Siegal, Nina. "Femme Fatale, Fallen Woman, Spy: Looking for the Real Mata Hari." The New York Times, 13 Oct. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/10/13/arts/mata-hari-netherlands.html. Accessed 29 Mar. 2018.
Wheelwright, Julie. The Fatal Lover: Mata Hari and the Myth of Women in Espionage. Collins & Brown, 1992. Asserts that wartime culture generally supported the erroneous idea of the treacherous and seductive female spy and that Mata Hari was a victim and an embodiment of this myth. Illustrated. Index, bibliography.