In this picture, colorized by Klimbim, Mata Hari performs her exotic dance routine she was known for. As a journalist in Vienna wrote, she was "so feline, extremely feminine, majestically tragic, the thousand curves and movements of her body trembling in a thousand rhythms.
Mata Hari (Mata Margaretha Geertruida Zelle) was born in Leeuwarden, Netherlands, and although scholars have concluded that both of her parents were Dutch. Her father, who owned a hat shop, was wealthy enough to send Hari to exclusive schools until she was 13. Unfortunately, he went bankrupt in 1889, and her parents divorced in 1889.
A Life Created By Tragedy
Source: (Dangerousminds.net).
Her mother died in 1891 and her father remarried in 1893; was then sent to live with her godfather, Mr. Visser in Sneek. She began to study to be a kindergarten teacher, but Visser removed her from the school after the headmaster started to flirt with her. She then fled to her uncle’s home in The Hague a few months later.
When she was 18, Hari married Captain Rudolf MacLeod on July 11, 1895. MacLeod, a Dutch Colonial Army Captain, had placed an ad in a Dutch newspaper, looking for a wife. The marriage benefited her financially, as she became part of the upper class. The couple moved to Malang on the east side of Java in 1897. Her husband, an alcoholic who regularly beat Hari, kept a concubine and Hari left him for a time, moving in with another Dutch officer; during that time, she learned as much as she could about Indonesian culture. She also joined a local dance company. At this point, she wrote to her relatives in the Netherlands, revealing her artistic name, Mata Hari, which translates into “sun” in the local Malay language.
Divorce
Source: (Dangerousminds.net).
MacLeod convinced her to return to him, but his behavior continued. After complications from the treatment for syphilis contracted from their parents, their children fell ill 1899. Jeanne survived, but Norman, their son, did not. They moved back to the Netherlands, officially separated on August 30, 1902 and divorced in 1906. Hari had custody of Jeanne, but MacLeod refused to pay child support. After a visit with Jeanne, MacLeod kept her, and Hari simply accepted it, as she was unable to pay to fight him.
Starting A New Career
Mata Hari dancing in the Musée Guimet. (1905) Source: (Wikipedia).
After their separation, Hari moved to Paris. There, as Lady MacLeod, she performed as a circus horse rider and posed as an artist’s model. On March 13, 1905, she debuted a new act: a flirtatious exotic dancer who openly flaunted her body. She also became the mistress of the millionaire Émile Étienne Guimet and started to pose as a Javanese princess who started learning to the art of sacred Indian dance when she was a child. Audiences believed her claims, and a journalist in Vienna wrote that she "makes a strange foreign impression." During this time, she was photographed in various stages of undress, and included stripping in her act. She would progressively shed clothes until the only thing she wore was a jeweled breastplate and a few ornaments, never completely revealing her chest because she was self-conscious about her size.
Love Led Her To Spy
On March 13, 1915, after her career had begun to decline, she performed her final show. However, she continued to have relationships with many high-powered men; some considered her a dangerous seductress.
One man she became involved with, Captain Vadim Maslov, was a 23 year-old Russian pilot serving with the French during World War I; she said he was the love of her life. He was blinded during a dogfight in the summer of 1916. Hari traveled to the Western Front to see him, but was told she would only be allowed to if she spied for France. The Deuxième Bureau wanted her to get military secrets from Crown Prince Wilhelm, the eldest son of Kaiser Wilhelm II, whom she had danced for in the past. German propaganda had created the image of the Crown Prince as a worthy successor to the throne; in reality, he was a partying, womanizing alcoholic who knew very little.
Becoming Entangled With The Germans
In 1916, she traveled to Madrid to meet with Major Arnold Kalle, a German military attaché to try to arrange a meeting with the Crown Prince. She reportedly offered to share French secrets with the Germans in exchange for money, which may have been in an attempt to set up the meeting. When her steamer docked in Falmouth, she was arrested and taken to London, where Sir Basil Thomson, assistant commissioner at New Scotland Yard in charge of counterterrorism interrogated her. Then, in January 1917, Major Kalle radioed Berlin to describe the activities of a German spy, H-21, who was a close match to Hari, and the messages were intercepted by the Deuxième Bureau. The evidence suggests that the Germans contrived to have the French arrest her.
The Odds Were Against Her
Mata Hari's mugshot. Source: (Wikipedia).
After the French uncovered weak evidence against her, Mata Hari was arrested on February 13, 1917 in her room at the Hotel Elysée Palace. She was placed on trial on July 24, accused of causing the deaths of 50,000 soldiers. Her contact at the Deuxième Bureau, Georges Ladoux became one of her principal accusers and may have engaged in evidence tampering to build a case against her. There was no real evidence that was found to support the accusations of her spying for Germany, except purported “secret ink” found in her room, which she explained was makeup. They used her fabricated identity as proof of her duplicitous nature. Sadly, her former lover Maslov refused to testify to support her. Unfortunately, she became a convenient scapegoat for the French government, and despite her claims of innocence, she was executed by a firing squad of 12 French soldiers on October 15, 1917.
