Mata Hari

November 9, 2023

~ 1876-1917
~ born or given name: Margaretha Zelle
~ Dutch exotic dancer, courtesan and spy
~ name has become a synonym for the seductive female spy
~ she was shot by the French on charges of spying for Germany during World War 1
~ her guilt is widely contested
~ in 1895 she married Capt. Rudolph MacLeod, an officer in the Dutch colonial army
~ they had two children, their son died young – supposedly poisoned by the nanny
~ in 1906 the couple divorced, Rudolph refused to pay child support so she ended up leaving her daughter with him
~ hoping to earn enough money to reunite with her daughter, Margaretha began to dance professionally in Paris in 1905 under the name of Lady MacLeod
~ shortly thereafter, she soon renamed herself Mata Hari, a Malay expression for the Sun, literally, “eye of the day”
~ being tall, extremely attractive, superficially acquainted with East Indian dances, and willing to appear virtually nude in public, Mata Hari was an instant success in Paris and other large cities

~ supposedly, in late 1915, while she was living in The Hague, an honorary German consul offered to pay her for whatever information she could obtain on her next trip to France
~ after her arrest by the French, she acknowledged that, while she had accepted money from Germany, she had given only outdated information to a German intelligence officer
~ according to statements that she supposedly made, she had agreed to act as a French spy in German-occupied Belgium and did not bother to tell French intelligence of her prior arrangement with the Germans
~ it was her intention to secure for the Allies the assistance of Ernest Augustus, duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg in Germany and heir to the dukedom of Cumberland in the British peerage
~ on February 13, 1917, she was arrested and imprisoned in Paris – suspected of duplicity (the quality or state of being double or twofold)
~ although there was no evidence to support the allegation, she was blamed for the death of up to50,000 French soldiers
~ on July 24–25, 1917, she was tried by a military court and sentenced to death
~ three months later she was shot by a firing squad
~ although the claim that she blew kisses to her executioners was later discredited, the assertion that she refused to wear a blindfold is probably true

source: Britannica

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