Hari life. The spy you loved. The real story of Mata Hari. Beautiful myth of great love
Exactly one hundred years ago, on October 15, 1917, a death sentence was carried out at the military training ground in Vincennes (a suburb of Paris). The firing squad fired a volley that ended the life of Mata Hari, perhaps the most famous spy of the 20th century and one of the most enigmatic figures in the First World War. As noted in some sources, after the execution, one of the officers approached the body of a woman and, to be sure, shot her in the back of the head with a revolver.
Mata Hari, real name Margaretha Geertruida Zelle, was born in the Dutch city of Leeuwarden on August 7, 1876. She was the only daughter and second child of Adam Zelle and Antje van der Meulen, a family of four. The father of the future spy was the owner of a hat shop. In addition, he managed to make successful and effective investments in the oil industry, so he became a wealthy enough man who did not skimp on the education of his children. Until the age of 13, Margareta attended only schools for the upper class. But in 1889, Adam Zelle went bankrupt and soon after divorced his wife, who died in 1891. So the family was completely destroyed. After the death of her mother, her father sent Margareta to her godfather in the small town of Sneek. After that, she continued her studies in Leiden, where she received the profession of a kindergarten teacher, but when the director of the local school began to openly flirt with the girl, her offended godfather took her away from this school. A few months later, the girl left Sneek to live with her uncle in The Hague. According to another version, it was Margareta who became the culprit of the scandal with the director of the school, having accepted his courtship, the community of the town did not forgive the young girl for her frivolous behavior, and this was the reason for her early departure.
Dramatic changes in the life of the girl led to the fact that in 1895 she met 39-year-old captain Rudolf McLeod, a Dutchman of Scottish origin, on an ad and almost immediately married him. At that time, Margaret was only 18 years old. What exactly prompted the girl to take such a hasty step is difficult to say. Perhaps it was the fact that she did not have sufficient means of subsistence, so she decided to marry a wealthy person. She could also strive for a calm and measured life that she had in childhood.
Margareta Gertrude Zelle, circa 1895
After the wedding, the newly-married couple moved to the island of Java (then it was the Dutch East Indies, today it is Indonesia). Here they had two children - a son and a daughter, but their family life clearly did not work out, it was impossible to call it happy. Margareta's husband turned out to be an alcoholic who behaved quite aggressively with his wife and often raised his hand against her, in addition to everything else, he openly kept his mistresses. In the end, Margaret began to lead a similar life, who did not sit at home, as a decent wife should, but had fun at local officer parties, this often caused family scandals. Disappointed in her wife, the girl moved to live with another Dutch officer, Van Redes.
For a long time, Margareta studied Indonesian traditions, in particular, she worked in a local dance group. In 1897, for the first time in her correspondence, she called herself the artistic pseudonym Mata Hari (literally from the Malay language “eye of the day” or, more simply, the sun). After long and persistent persuasion, the girl returned home to her lawful spouse, but his aggressive behavior remained the same. Therefore, trying to distract herself and forget the hated family life, Mata Hari continued to study the local culture and traditions.
In 1898, Margaret's cheese died at the age of two. It is believed that he died from complications of syphilis, which was transmitted to him from his parents. At the same time, the spouses themselves claimed that the servant had poisoned him. In any case, their family life after that collapsed completely. After returning back to Holland, the couple divorced, this happened in 1903. At the same time, Rudolf sued his wife for the right to raise her daughter, who died in August 1919 at the age of 21. The alleged cause of her death was complications of syphilis. In any case, the death of her son and the collapse of family life were a serious test for Margaret, who, after returning to Europe, was left without a livelihood, feeling real poverty.
She decided to go to Paris to earn money. In the capital of France, she first acted as a circus rider, choosing for herself the name "Lady Gresha McLeod." Loud fame came to her in 1905, when she became famous throughout Europe as a performer of dances of the "oriental style", at the same time she began performing under the pseudonym Mata Hari, under this name she went down in history forever. Some of her dances were something very close to modern striptease, which was still an unusual phenomenon for the Western audience of the 20th century. Often at the end of the number, which was performed on stage in front of a narrow circle of connoisseurs, she remained almost completely naked. Mata Hari herself said that she reproduces the real sacred dances of the East, which she allegedly knew from childhood. She mystified her interlocutors in every possible way with various stories of a romantic orientation. For example, she said that she was a real princess - the daughter of King Edward VII and an Indian princess, that she had a horse that only the mistress could ride, that she spent her childhood in the East and was brought up in a monastery, and other stories that created the necessary for her mysterious romantic background. It is worth noting that Mata Hari, as they say, found her niche, at the beginning of the 20th century Europe experienced a huge interest in everything that was connected with the East and ballet, as well as erotica. The great success of Mata Hari in Paris soon spread to other European capitals.
European newspapers wrote about her: "This naked dancer is the new Salome, who makes any man lose his head." She herself spoke of herself like this: “I never knew how to dance well, people came to look at me in droves only because I was the first who dared to appear naked in front of the public.” It is worth noting that often she danced really naked. Unlike Isadora Duncan, who performed in transparent robes, Mata Hari performed completely naked. On her rather seductive body, there was nothing but jewelry and accessories that covered her breasts.
She soon began to enjoy her fame and glory and began to gain numerous wealthy admirers. One of them was a rich French man who invited Mata Hari to speak at the Museum of Oriental Art. Her photographs captivated most of the male population of the Old World, over time she became a very successful courtesan and was in connection with numerous high-ranking politicians, military men and other influential people in various European countries, including France and Germany. Later biographers would estimate that she had over a hundred different lovers.
She often received expensive gifts, but despite this she experienced financial difficulties and quite often borrowed money. It is believed that one of her passions was card games, which could take large sums of money. Before the outbreak of World War I, Mata Hari met a German police officer. Some researchers believe that it was at that moment that she came to the attention of the German special services. In 1911, the famous Milanese opera house "La Scala" engaged Mata Hari for the winter season. At the same time, she even negotiated with Sergei Diaghilev about performances in his ballet, but they ended in nothing. In the summer season of 1913, she performed in the French capital at the Folies Bergère, and on March 23, 1914, she signed a contract with the Berlin Metropol Theater, she was to perform in the ballet The Thief of Millions. The premiere of the ballet was scheduled for September 1, 1914, but the First World War broke out a month before this date.
On August 6, 1914, the dancer left Berlin for Switzerland. However, she was denied entry to this country, while her luggage managed to cross the border in a freight car. Mata Hari was forced to return back to the capital of Germany, from where she went to her homeland - to the Netherlands. In Amsterdam, she found herself in a rather difficult situation, since before that she had lost all her things. Mutual friends introduced her to Consul Karl Kramer, who ran the official German information service in Amsterdam. Under the roof of this service, one of the departments of German intelligence was hiding. By the end of the autumn of 1915, German intelligence finally recruited Mata Hari, who could freely move around Europe, being a citizen of a neutral country. The first task for her was to find out in Paris the immediate plans for the offensive of the Allied forces. In December 1915, Mata Hari arrived in France, where she began this mission.
From Paris, they left for Spain, this trip was also of a reconnaissance nature. On January 12, 1916, she arrived in Madrid, where she got in touch with the military attache of the German embassy, Major Kalle. The latter immediately ordered that the information received be transmitted to Consul Kramer in Amsterdam. This encryption was intercepted by British intelligence. After meeting Kalle in Madrid, Mata Hari returned to The Hague via Portugal. Being a Dutch citizen, she could travel from France home and back, but the countries at that time were separated by the front line, so her path usually ran through Spain and Great Britain. Over time, her movements attracted the attention of Allied counterintelligence.
Mata Hari in 1915
Once again, returning to Paris, in the second half of 1916, Mata Hari learned that a person close to her, staff captain Vadim Maslov, after being wounded near Verdun, was undergoing treatment at the Vittel resort, located in the forbidden front zone. Vadim Maslov was an officer in the Russian expeditionary force, he was half her age, but at the same time he wanted to marry her. In order to get to her lover, Mata Hari turned to the French military authorities for help, who set her a condition: to get secret information from her high-ranking German acquaintances. And she agreed to these conditions, becoming, in fact, a double agent.
Early the following year, the French sent her on a non-essential mission to Madrid, where Allied suspicions of her spying for Germany were finally confirmed. The radio exchange of a German agent in Madrid with the center was again intercepted, in which the agent H-21, who had been recruited by the French, arrived in Spain and received an assignment from the local German residency to return to Paris again. Perhaps the Germans deliberately declassified Mata Hari, as they wanted to get rid of the double agent by giving him to the enemy. One way or another, on the morning of February 13, 1917, Mata Hari was arrested in Paris on charges of espionage. She was placed in the Faubourg-Saint-Denis prison in Saint-Lazare. The interrogations of the alleged spy continued for four months, the last taking place on June 21, 1917. At the same time, the woman insisted that she worked exclusively in the interests of France and in Madrid lured important information from Major Calle. The trial of Mata Hari began on July 24, 1917 and was held behind closed doors. The very next day, Margareta Gertrude Zelle was sentenced to death. Appeals filed by her lawyer and appeals for clemency to the President of France came to nothing. On October 15, 1917, the death sentence was carried out.
After the execution, the body of Mata Hari was not claimed by any of her relatives, for this reason it was transferred to the anatomical theater. So her head was embalmed and preserved in the Paris Museum of Anatomy. But in 2000 it turned out that the head was gone. According to experts, the loss occurred even earlier - in 1954, when the museum was moved. In any case, this episode only added mysticism and mystery to the already rather complicated life story of Mata Hari.
Today, some historians believe that the harm from the activities of Mata Hari (her effectiveness as a scout) was seriously exaggerated. It is unlikely that the information she actually obtained (if such information existed at all) was of significant value to the warring parties. According to the historian E. B. Chernyak, the death sentence could have been influenced not by the espionage activities of Mata Hari, but by her connections with representatives of the French political and military elite. The danger of disclosure of information about these connections, the fear of giving them wide publicity and could affect the speedy imposition of the death sentence.
Possessing a number of indisputable talents and a rich imagination, Mata Hari played the role of a high-society spy. She played it from beginning to end: to the charges, trial and death penalty. All this fit perfectly into her "cinematic" biography of an exotic oriental dancer, femme fatale and spy, providing her with greater fame than other, much more effective scouts of her time.
Summing up some results, we can say that Mata Hari has become one of the most famous women of the 20th century. Having lived only 41 years, she was able to go down in history by forever writing her name into it. The biography of this woman, the history and description of her life, photographs that have survived to this day are still the subject of increased attention from not only numerous historians (both professionals and amateurs), but also the most ordinary people around the world.
Sources of information:
https://ria.ru/spravka/20160807/1473729485.html
http://interesnyefakty.org/mata-hari
http://stuki-druki.com/authors/Mata-Hari.php
Materials from open sources
The life of beautiful women is often surrounded by rumors and gossip. If such a person was shot for espionage, then her death is overgrown with legends. Mata Hari's activities are exaggerated by newspapermen, writers and filmmakers who liked to describe the adventures of a sexy super spy. But, most likely, this poor woman simply loved money very much.
If you list at least half of what exactly, according to legend, her super agent Mata Hari told German intelligence, it becomes incomprehensible how Germany managed to lose the First World War. Here are just a few of the things that the French tabloids accused her of: revealing the secret of the construction of the first tanks, reporting on the unrest in the French army, passing on the secrets of the Russian General Staff, revealing the plan of the French offensive on the German front, known as "Plan XVII", the death of the British the Hampshire cruiser with Lord Kitchener in chief on board ... Little things, like the disclosure of double agents, are generally not worthy of mention in the biography of an intelligence star of this magnitude.
According to the same "competent sources", among the lovers of Mata Hari were French generals, high officials, the Minister of War and the Minister of the Interior. It seems that they all blurted out so many secrets to her that they simply physically did not have time for sex, for which, for sure, they began a relationship with a luxurious exotic dancer.
The list of intimate friends of Mata Hari from the German side is even more impressive: the crown prince, again the minister of the interior, the head of German intelligence, military attachés in almost all European capitals, etc. etc., etc. Surely, retelling the secrets of the Entente revealed to all of them also took up a lot of the poor woman's time. Be that as it may, the valiant French counterintelligence uncovered the spy, proved her guilt to the court, but after the execution, the beautiful body was stolen from the prison morgue - probably, the inconsolable crown prince ordered.
Margareta Zelle, 1915
In fact, the true fate of Margareta Gertrude Zelle, known under the pseudonym Mata Hari, which means “Sun” in the Indonesian dialect, was really stormy, but not in the espionage part.
The daughter of a wealthy Dutch bourgeois until the age of 13 did not know the need for anything, but then her father went bankrupt, her mother died, and the girl had to take care of her own fate. According to the announcement, she married an officer and went with him to Java. The couple lived unhappily - the husband beat his wife and openly made mistresses. Margareta gave birth to two children, but both died from complications of syphilis, which they contracted from dissolute parents. In 1903 the family returned to Europe and broke up. Margareta went to seek her fortune in Paris.
In Java, she learned the local dance art and began to perform oriental dances in the French capital. She danced, apparently, not bad - Puccini and Diaghilev spoke positively about her choreography. Striptease as such did not yet exist, so the dances of Mata Hari, at the end of which she remained completely naked, aroused the interest of a solvent public.
In addition, the performances were accompanied by a wave of rumors and gossip about her past. For example, Mata Hari claimed to be the daughter of an Indian Brahmin. When experts objected that her dances were not Indian, but rather Indonesian, the brahmin dad abruptly changed his nationality and became the Sultan of Sumatran.
A few years later, Mata Hari had the murky fame of a half-light star and several rich lovers (hopefully, by that time she had already recovered from syphilis). Her fee for each performance reached two thousand francs, but she spent much more, had a rich mansion with luxurious decoration and a magnificent collection of porcelain. In addition, the dancer's passion for the card game also took a lot of money.
The expenses were covered by her wealthy sponsors. Later, the authors of books about Mata Hari assured that since 1910 she had become an agent of German intelligence. If so, then the lion's share of the budget of the German secret services should have gone to her luxurious life. However, the fact that Mata Hari studied at the intelligence school in Lorrach (Bavaria) was not confirmed in the archives of this institution.
With the outbreak of the World War, Mata Hari began to experience a lack of finances (if she was a spy, everything should have been exactly the opposite). Accustomed to a luxurious life, the dancer was over forty, and sponsors began to lose interest in her.
Mata Hari got into debt, which there was nothing to repay. She began to offer her services of the widest range to anyone who was willing to pay at least something. Apparently, then contacts began with German intelligence, which is unlikely to have received anything really valuable from its new agent.
In 1915, an employee of the French counterintelligence, Captain Ladu, became interested in the dancer. Almost at the first meeting, Mata Hari also wanted to become a French agent, asking for an exorbitant amount of a million francs for her services - she clearly had little understanding of the prices in the spy market.
Legend has it that the first information reported by Mata Hari to the French was information about two German submarines that were carrying weapons to the Moroccan rebels in the port of Mehediyya. Armed with knowledge, the French aviators destroyed both submarines. Some conspiracy theorists are still convinced that the information about the submarines was leaked by the Germans specifically in order to infiltrate their super agent Mata Hari into the French intelligence services.
But this is all fiction. And it's not even that any super spy costs less than two submarines. It's just that the port of Mehediyya never existed in nature, and in the only Moroccan settlement with a similar name - Mediah, there was just a French naval base.
Almost all information about Mata Hari's espionage activities does not withstand such an elementary test. Everything that she allegedly told the Germans, they either knew long before her, or did not know at all. At the trial, Mata Hari herself assured that she only told the bosses what she read from the newspapers. It's funny that a few years later it was these newspapers that made a super spy out of their attentive reader.
Mata Hari before execution
On February 13, 1917, Mata Hari was arrested. She met the police officers not at all lying naked on the bed, as some books about her say, but in a business suit and at breakfast. Margareta spent eight months in prison. And therefore, she could not even try to soften the court with lies about her pregnancy, as the novelists again wrote.
The trial was held behind closed doors. The defendant categorically refused to admit her guilt. “A prostitute, yes, but a traitor, never,” she defended herself. Despite the fact that historians who studied the protocols of the tribunal assure that the guilt of the accused was not proven, Margareta Zelle was sentenced to death.
They shot Mata Hari in the courtyard of the Chateau de Vincennes on October 15, 1917. At the same time, she did not at all show her naked body to the firing squad, and not a single soldier fainted from the unearthly beauty of the condemned. The corpse of Mata Hari was transferred to the anatomical theater as a training material for medical students. But her alcoholized head really disappeared from the Museum of Anatomy.
Perhaps the vessel with the exhibit was lost or simply smashed when the museum moved to a new location back in 1954. True, they discovered the loss only in the 2000th. Apparently, in the 20th century in France, things were not going well not only with counterintelligence activities, but also with regard to museum exhibits.
0 6 July 2019, 12:00Paulo Coelho dedicated his novel to her, the composer Giacomo Puccini sent flowers to her home after each of her performances, her image on the silver screen was embodied by such stars as Greta Garbo, Merli Oberon, Francoise Fabian, Jeanne Moreau and Sylvia Christel. the site tells the story of the most famous spy and exotic dancer Mata Hari.
Margaret Gertrud Zelle was born in 1876 in the Netherlands, she was the daughter of a once prosperous hat merchant who went bankrupt when the girl was 13 years old. Margareta's mother died in 1891, and her father sent her to her godfather in the town of Sneek. Then she continued her studies in Leiden, intending to become a kindergarten teacher, but when the director of the school began to openly flirt with her (according to another version, the girl herself seduced the director who was suitable for her grandfather), the offended godfather took Margareta from this educational institution, and she moved to Amsterdam.
There, at the age of 18, she married an officer of the Dutch army, Rudolf Macleod, whom she met through an advertisement. Together they lived on the island of Java (Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia), where they had two children: son Norman John (the boy died in 1899 from syphilis) and daughter Jeanne Louise (died at 21 from complications from syphilis ).
The birth of a supernova
Unable to find family happiness, Zelle moved to Paris.
I chose Paris, probably because all the wives who ran away from their husbands are drawn to this city, she will say later.
At first, she leaned into the model, but she was quickly replaced by more successful competitors - Margaret was not much favored by French artists, since she could not boast of a magnificent bust.
Then she performed as a circus rider under the name of Lady Gresha McLeod. Since 1905, her loud fame began as an "oriental style" dancer, performing under the pseudonym Mata Hari (literally translated from Malay as "eye of the day" or "sun"). She, not being a professional dancer, set herself a number and in 1905 she first appeared before the public in Paris at the Musée Guimet Museum of Oriental Art. Her performance among the exhibits of the museum in luxurious attire made a splash. 
Madame Mata Hari learned these absolutely authentic Brahmin dances in Java from the best priestesses of India. These dances are kept secret. In the depths of the temples, only brahmins and devadasis can watch them - this is how the journalists of the newspaper La Vie Parisienne described her performance.
Having received a new name, the girl began a new life. Mata Hari claimed to be the daughter of an Indian temple dancer and was born in Java. Everywhere she began to tell the story of how her mother, a 14-year-old Indian, died in childbirth, how she herself lived in Buddhist temples, where she was taught unusual and exotic dances. Some of her dances were something close to modern striptease and then still seemed completely unusual for the Western audience: at the end of the number (performed in front of a narrow circle of connoisseurs on a stage strewn with rose petals), the dancer remained almost completely naked (according to legend, "God pleased Shiva").
And she told some that she was the illegitimate daughter of the Emperor of India Edward VII and a certain Indian princess, she grew up and was raised by the priests of the temple in Kanda Svani:
I never knew how to dance, but people liked my performances, most likely because I was naked.
The lack of professionally staged numbers did not prevent her from literally captivating crowds of men with her dances. Mata has performed in all the cultural capitals of Europe. As soon as she went on stage in a bra embroidered with precious stones and a gold headdress, all eyes were on her. Mata Hari's career lasted about ten years. As her contemporaries recalled, she was very charming, fluent in several languages and easily seduced rich and powerful people from different countries, including high-ranking officials, ambassadors and diplomats.
She played in the theater in Monte Carlo, where Prince Albert I of Monaco was among the audience. The dancer performed on the same stage with world stars - Fyodor Chaliapin, Emma Calvet and Geraldine Farrar.
Two well-known composers were ready to write music for her dance numbers at once - Jules Massenet and Giacomo Puccini, who were in love with her. Puccini showered her with expensive gifts (according to rumors, he spent all the funds intended for the theater troupe on her) and sent flowers to her home after each performance. While Jules Massenet, rejected by her, tried to commit suicide.
The name of Mata Hari is becoming almost a household name: it appears on the names of cigarettes, boxes of Dutch cookies and sweets, on postcards. Greta's impoverished father writes a book about her, which was published in 1906 and is called "The Story of My Daughter's Life and My Objections to Her Former Husband".
World War I
During the First World War, the Netherlands remained neutral, and as a Dutch citizen, Mata Hari could travel from France to her homeland and back. A native of Holland did not hide the fact that she had relationships with men on both sides of the conflict. Her constant travel and attracted the attention of the allied counterintelligence.
While she was in The Hague in 1915, she was approached by a German diplomat who offered a large sum of money (by modern standards, about 61 thousand dollars) for spying for Germany. Mata Hari accepted the money (later they would be used against her during the trial), but subsequently refused to fulfill her "mission". She denied ever spying for Germany and claimed to have taken the money as compensation for personal items that were confiscated by Germany at the start of the war.
I remembered my expensive fur coats and outfits that the Germans had detained in Berlin, and I decided that I needed to get as much money from them as possible, she said. 
Agent H-21
Back in Paris, she came to the attention of Georges Ladoux, the French counterintelligence chief, who followed her, but could not find any physical evidence of her espionage.
In 1916, when she was 40 years old, her dancing career began to decline, and the money earned earlier was rapidly running out. Mata Hari fell in love with the Russian captain Vladimir Maslov. He served in the Russian expeditionary force and was in the retinue of Nicholas II. When he was wounded at the front, she applied to the War Office for permission to travel to visit him. Officials, including Lada, demanded that she become a French spy in exchange for money, with which Mata Hari hoped to arrange a lavish wedding. She agreed, but did not tell Lad that she had previously agreed to spy on Germany.
I will work for you, but only because I want to marry the man I love, and I want to become a wealthy woman, the dancer said.
Beloved of Mata Hari, as it turned out, did not plan to marry her, and in general, he treated the relationship with the dancer simply as a fleeting romance.
Actress Jeanne Moreau as Mata Hari in the film "Mata Hari. Agent H 21" (Mata Hari, Agent H 21)
Lada, apparently, hoped to trap a woman in love. Mata Hari herself, perhaps unaware of the dangerous game she was playing, did not try to hide her connection with the Ladu agency, wrote to him by mail (letters could be easily intercepted) and often visited his offices to collect remuneration for the work done. According to some reports, she sold information about the Germans to the French, and to the Germans about the French.
In November 1917, British authorities detained her while she was traveling from Spain to the Netherlands. During tough interrogations, she admitted that she was hired by the special services. Ladu betrayed her, telling the British that he only hired her to expose her work as a German spy. Mata Hari was deported to France.
Lado himself was later arrested and found to be a double agent, but he was eventually released. Upon returning to Paris, Mata Hari was arrested by French intelligence and accused of spying for the enemy in wartime.
I have never engaged in any espionage activity against France,
Hari assured the investigator.
She was allowed to meet only with her lawyer, who was also her former lover.
During her trial, prosecutors alleged that the information she provided was directly related to the deaths of 50,000 Allied soldiers. But they were unable to provide any direct evidence of her espionage, instead repeatedly using what they believed to be immoral behavior as evidence of her guilt.
Prosecutor Pierre Bouchardon said:
Without a doubt, she is used to using men, one of those women who are born to be spies. State prosecutor André Mornet said "the harm this woman has done is indescribable" and called her "the greatest spy of the century."
Execution
An all-male military tribunal ruled that she should be shot in just 45 minutes. That morning, the guards came for her, asked her to get dressed - the woman was outraged that they would execute her in the morning without feeding her breakfast. While she was preparing for her execution (putting on a black velvet coat, hat, black suede gloves and high-heeled shoes), the coffin for her body had already been delivered to the building. At the place of execution, at one of the shooting ranges near Paris, a firing squad of 12 people was already waiting for her. Mata Hari asked not to bind her hands and not to put on a blindfold.
I'm ready boys! - according to legend, Mata Hari shouted, blowing a kiss to a platoon of French soldiers, who a second later shot her at a military training ground in Vincennes.
The body of Mata Hari was not claimed by any of her relatives, so it was transferred to the anatomical theater. Her head was embalmed and preserved at the Anatomy Museum in Paris. However, in 2000, archivists discovered that the head had disappeared, and they still cannot find it.
Mata Hari was used to boost French morale
Most historians believe that her arrest and prosecution were deliberately arranged by French officials. 1916 was a year of serious French setbacks on the Western Front, which even caused the soldiers to refuse to fight.
Mata Hari's extraordinary lifestyle and rich love past made her an easy target. She was very different from the French women of those years who lost their husbands and sons at the front, experts say.
Greta Garbo as Mata Hari
“In fact, no one has ever found concrete evidence of her guilt. Her whole life is shrouded in myths and legends,” writes Pat Shipman in the book “Femme Fatale: Love, Lies and Unknown Pages of the Life of Mata Hari.”
The legend of the spy
In 2016, the Dutch National Ballet in Amsterdam presented a new ballet "Mata Hari". Her story is still relevant in that she is a woman who does not conform to the norms of society and anyone else's ideas, - said Ted Brandsen, managing director of the National Ballet of the Netherlands.
Asta Nielsen in Mata Hari 100 years after her execution, the archives of her interrogations and trials were opened to the public. A museum in Mata Hari's home province of Friesland hosted an exhibition last year dedicated to her life.
I thought she was somehow arrogant, spoiled and even pathetic. But when I started reading her letters from different periods of her life, I suddenly discovered that she was ambitious, smart and able to live for her own pleasure. She wrote hundreds of letters, sometimes six a day. If she were alive now, she would definitely tweet. Her letters make it clear who she really was and in what mood she was at one time or another in her life,
said Lawrence Aldersma, a researcher who worked on the exhibit.
Jeanne Moreau in the movie "Mata Hari" (Mata Hari) A few months after her death, the first biography of Mata Hari was published. Since then, she has been the subject of hundreds of books and essays. Greta Garbo starred in the 1931 film based on her life. Her biography has also formed the basis of many plays, musicals, productions and operas. However, historians continue to debate whether she was really a secret double agent or just a victim involved in a maelstrom of sexism, intrigue and military mayhem.
Vaina Giocante in the series "Mata Hari" (Mata Hari)
Photo Gettyimages.ru
Mata Hari lived more than a hundred years ago, but her name still excites the minds. Who was she: a charming seductive dancer - or a genius of international espionage? It is difficult to answer this question unequivocally: reviews of contemporaries and biographical essays vary too much; it seems that we are talking about different women.
How did Mata Hari influence international relations, why did she forever go down in history, and what should we learn from her?
A few words about childhood and real name
The name Mata Hari seems very unusual for the Netherlands at the beginning of the 20th century. And it is not surprising, because Mata's real name, given at birth, is Margareta Gertrude Zelle.
She was born on August 7, 1876 in the small town of Leeuwarden, which is located in the province of Friesland in the Netherlands.
Her father owned a small shop, and at one time rose well on investments, so Margareta grew up in a wealthy family. She went to schools for the upper class and was considered one of the best students, and her parents tried to ensure that her daughter did not need anything.
But the period of family prosperity ended when the father became bankrupt. This happened in 1889, and shortly after that, the parents filed for divorce. Unable to withstand the moral stress, Margareta's mother fell ill - and died in 1891.
The daughter was sent to the city of Sneck, where her godfather lived, and a little later, when the question arose of receiving further education, the girl moved to the city of Leiden. There she entered an institution where future kindergarten teachers studied.
Video: Mata Hari. The spy who was betrayed
How not to shackle yourself with puritanical rules: instructions from Mata
The period of life in Leiden can be considered the starting point in Margareta's career as an insidious (or not so) seductress. She managed to use her feminine charms to fall in love with the director of the school. Noticing an open flirtation between young Greta and an adult man, the godfather considered it necessary to prevent a scandal - and take the girl away from the epicenter of events.
But Margaret was no longer satisfied with a calm and orderly life, in the house of her godfather she lacked air and freedom. Therefore, she fled to The Hague to her uncle - but he, too, was overly strict by her standards.
Ideal, as it seemed to her at that time, the solution to all problems was a successful marriage. Once she came across a newspaper, on the pages of which single men complained about the lack of female warmth - and hoped to get acquainted with lovely young ladies.
The "victim" of Margaret's spell was Captain Rudolf McLeod, who was 20 years older. Not much time passed between acquaintance and marriage, Rudolph and Greta went to the altar, barely knowing each other. Naturally, there was no love on the part of the girl, only calculation.
The instructions did not work, or non-paradise life on a paradise island
It is not known whether Margaret flattered herself with hopes for a quiet life with her husband, but he did not give her the opportunity to feel like a happy wife. The couple moved to the island of Java, which, at that time, belongs to the Dutch East Indies, where they tried to build a strong family.
But the marriage disappointed both. Rudolph was more interested in strong liquor than in a young beautiful wife, who was successfully replaced by numerous mistresses.
He liked to periodically reproach his wife - they say, it is she who is to blame for the fact that he is a complete loser and is not being promoted. Despite this, Margareta bore Rudolph two children: a son, Norman-John, and a daughter, Jeanne-Louise.
Even the children could not keep Greta. Unable to bear domestic scandals, she moved in with her lover Van Redes. There were rumors that she cheated on her husband with other Dutch officers, and generally went into all serious trouble, trying to take revenge on her husband more painfully.
In the same period, she began to attend dance classes, she was especially interested in national Indonesian dances.
The husband persuaded Margareta to return - she agreed, but Rudolph did not settle down.
Only dancing and immersion in the local culture helped to get rid of the oppressive depression. It was there that Margareta came up with a pseudonym for herself - and for the first time she called herself in a letter to her relatives.
Mata Hari is a phrase that means "sun" in Malay. Literally: "mata" - the eye, and "hari" - the day.
In 1899, Greta's son dies at the age of two. The reason is not known for certain - but, most likely, these were complications of syphilis, which the parents awarded the child. They also denied the fact of having an "indecent" disease, claiming that the servant had poisoned the baby.
The daughter lived much longer than her son, but at the age of 21 she died with similar symptoms.
How to play on a man's nature? Ask Matt!
In 1903, the couple returned to Holland, after which Margareta immediately filed for divorce. Rudolf took away the mother's right to raise her daughter, so Jeanne-Louise stayed with her father.
The ex-husband flatly refused to pay alimony and provide for his wife, so Greta remained on the verge of poverty.
Realizing that she could not earn enough money in Holland, Margareta went to Paris. The lively city beckoned her with sparkling lights, it seemed to the woman that this was the place where she could solve all problems. When she was later asked why the capital of France, she replied - they say, it always seemed to her that all the women who ran away from disgusted husbands go to Paris.
At first, Greta wanted to become a model for artists, but her candidacy was rejected. Say, the bust is small and unimpressive. Margaret did not despair, and got a job in a circus, where she worked as a horse rider, performing under the pseudonym Lady Gresha McLeod.
But such a career did not appeal to her, and the earnings did not please her. Therefore, I had to remember the skills of dancing and seducing the male.
The combination of these two skills provided Greta with a path to the bohemian environment of Paris, where she revealed her full potential - and finally became Mata Hari. The dances of the woman made an indelible impression on the French, inexperienced with the exotic: frank outfits and skillful balancing on the verge of decency and frank striptease led men to ecstasy.
The fact that at the end of the performance the dancer was wearing the bare minimum of clothes, barely covering shameful places, Mata skillfully substantiated. The striptease was justified by the fact that the dance was religious and dedicated to Shiva, so the vice police could not find fault. The dances were exotic, which means that they had an element of foreign traditions. And who will sort them out, these natives, together with their beliefs?
Mat's triumph took place in March 1905. She performed at the Musée Guimet Museum of Oriental Art, which belonged to the wealthy industrialist Monsieur Guimet. The flexible and graceful Margareta was so to his liking that he decided to ensure her career by all means. The speech was attended by the ambassadors of Japan and Germany, as well as the most famous residents of Paris. Mata was wearing luxurious clothes and jewelry, from which at the end of the dance only bracelets and a necklace remained. The result is a sensation among Parisian bohemians, long discussions of Mata's talent and a rapid rise in his career.
Mat's love of hoaxes played a significant role. She claimed to have come from distant lands and was the daughter of a mysterious king, sometimes saying that she was brought up in an eastern monastery.
Against the backdrop of a general passion for the East, such legends allowed Mata to rapidly rise to the heights of popularity. She turns into a real brand, sweets, cigarettes are named after her, graceful Greta is depicted on postcards.
The woman is invited to perform at the Rothschild mansion, and after a successful show on the stage of the Olympia Theater, Mata Hari is recognized as the ideal of beauty and plasticity. Newspapers around the world write about a charming dancer who can drive a man crazy with one movement of a graceful leg.
Along the way, Margareta did not disdain the profession of a courtesan, and enjoyed all the benefits of her position. She was familiar with politicians, bankers, industrialists who gave her expensive jewelry and provided financial support.
There were rumors that she had powerful patrons in almost every major European city. But, nevertheless, Mat had financial difficulties, and she had to borrow periodically.
Charming spy
It is not known exactly when, and under what circumstances, Margareta was recruited. Her involvement in espionage was discovered during the First World War, but there is reason to believe that the recruitment took place long before the military conflict.
The first suspicions were caused by too frequent trips from France to the Netherlands. Mata's home state maintained military neutrality, so Dutch citizens were allowed free entry. But the front line lay between the two states, so she had to go through Spain and Britain, where she could theoretically be recruited by German residents.
When, in 1916, French counterintelligence suggested that Mata was involved in espionage, the woman herself came to them and offered her services. In a conversation, she accidentally mentioned the name of her lover, whom the French knew as a German agent. To test, Mata was sent to Madrid on a simple mission. To make sure that Margaret is a double agent, the radio interception of a message from German intelligence that the agent recruited by France must immediately return from Madrid to Paris helped.
Beautiful myth of great love
There is a legend that the real reason to turn to French intelligence was ad nauseam prosaic: Mata met Russian pilot Vadim Maslov. He lived in France and served in aviation, was young and handsome. He was suitable for Mat as a son - but, despite the huge difference in age, Margareta fell in love with the young Russian, and was ready for anything for him.
According to rumors, the young pilot was sent to the front, where he was wounded and lost an eye. Distraught from worries about her beloved, Mata rushed to see him in the hospital - but she was not allowed.
Allegedly, in order to get to Vadim, the woman turned to the French military, but they set an ultimatum: until the woman gets the data from the enemy German soldiers, she will not see Vadim. That is why Mata was sent to Madrid, where he was declassified.
Is this true, or a beautiful myth? It is impossible to prove, since all the data about Mata has not yet been disclosed. Another version says that Germany itself allowed to intercept the radio channel in order to get rid of the double agent.
Either way, the consequences were dire.
swift denouement
Mata was arrested in January 1917. She was interrogated for about four months, but she denied all the facts of involvement in German agents. But the French managed to decipher several radio messages that proved Mat's activities as an agent.
At her trial, she was accused of transmitting data that led to the death of several French divisions. This was the reason for the death penalty without the right to pardon.
She remained incredibly calm until the last moment. The lawyer suggested that she tell her that she was pregnant, thereby delaying the execution - but Margaret refused.
In the morning, when she was told that the sentence would be carried out immediately, she was indignant that she would not even be fed breakfast. Mata dressed with customary care, after which she was taken to a military training ground. She asked not to wear a mask over her eyes and not to tie her hands. Before the execution, Mata blew a kiss to the firing squad - and said she was ready. Even at the last moment, she looked calm. It happened on October 15, 1917.
Mata Hari and modernity: why do we remember her?
The story of a courtesan and the ancestor of striptease, who got into intelligence and proved herself to be the smartest woman with nerves of steel, still excites the minds of people. Until now, biographers have not been able to prove whether she was just a whore who dreamed only of men's wallets, or whether she calculated every step in advance, and fatally made a mistake only once.
Some believe that she was an ordinary woman, a fatal fate brought down on her the hardest life hardships that the fragile Margaret Zeller had to cope with.
The first film about Mata Hari appeared already 3 years after her death. The main role in different years was played by Asta Nielsen, Greta Garbo, Jeanne Moreau. Books were written about the great temptress, her life attracted screenwriters and directors.
In 1992, the book “The Life and Death of Mata Hari” was published, and in 2009, director E. Ginzburg staged a play based on the life of the great dancer, and a year later a play by another Russian director, S. Prokhanov, was shown. In 2016, a series was filmed in which the role of Mata went to Vaina Giocante.
More than 100 years have passed since the death of Margaret Zeller, but the memory of the greatest spy of all time is still alive.
It can be guaranteed that the idea of a courtesan-temptress involved in inter-political intrigues will be in demand for many years to come.
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Mata Hari was born on August 7, 1876 in the small town of Levourden in the Netherlands. At birth, she received a beautiful, but familiar Scandinavian name - Margareta-Gertrud Zelle. Until the age of 15, Margaret's life was secure and serene. The second child in the family, the only spoiled girl, she received the best education in privileged educational institutions and did not know any refusal. Her father, the hatter Adam Zelle, made a number of successful investments in the oil business and did not skimp on his beloved daughter. But in 1889, Adam suddenly went bankrupt, fell into depression, and then left his family, and did not take any more part in the fate of Margaret. The girl's mother died two years later, and the child was taken care of.
The girl was attached to the school, it was assumed that there she would receive the profession of a kindergarten teacher, but the director of this educational institution showed too ambiguous interest in Margaret, a scandal erupted, and the family decided to send the young beauty to her uncle in The Hague. There she met a young officer, Rudolf Macleod, and in March 1895 she married him. The newlyweds go to the place of work of her husband, in Indonesia. After 7 years, the Macleods return to Holland and get divorced. Margaret is left not only without male support, but also without a penny in her pocket, and, what is much worse, she knows nothing, she has no profession. The young woman decides to go to Paris.
In 1905, a new exotic "star" rises on the French stage. Her name is Mata Hari, she is the daughter of an Indian princess and a Scottish baron, she was brought up in a sacred Indian temple and learned ancient dances from priestesses, who gave her such an exotic name, which means “eye of the day” in Malay. It is believed that this legend for the former Margaret was invented by Mr. Guimet, the owner of the Asian Art Museum in Paris, who got to her first performance and was struck by the beauty and grace of a young woman.
Mata Hari performed in an exotic decor imitating the decoration of an Indian temple, by the light of numerous candles. At that time, her costume was shocking - her chest was barely covered with precious stones, a panel of translucent fabric falls from an inlaid belt, bracelets lavishly adorn her wrists and calves, and a crown gleams in her dark hair. How she danced was no longer important with such outfits. Even when one of the journalists tried to criticize her far from flawless technique, he was still forced to mention her scandalous stage costume, and the curious audience poured into the performance. Mata Hari became famous. She danced in private salons and on the big stage. Her number was inserted into the ballet and opera program. She was invited on tour, and she traveled a lot. Among the many admirers of the dancer, who provide her with financial support in exchange for time spent in her company, there are many officers from different countries.
During the First World War, it was this lifestyle that played a bad joke on Margaret MacLeod. Traveling a lot? Is she seen in the company of high-ranking military officials? Who is she - a spy? In February 1917, the French authorities arrested Mata Hari on charges of espionage and imprisoned Saint-Lazare in Paris. At a closed military court held in July, she was accused of transferring information about new weapons (tanks) to the enemy and, as a result, of the death of thousands of soldiers. Margaret was found guilty and on October 15, 1917 was shot in the suburbs of the French capital Vincennes. This is how Margaret-Gertrude Macleod died, but the legend of the beautiful spy Mata Hari continued to live after her death. It was also said that the dancer threw off her coat in front of the firing squad and turned out to be naked, but this did not embarrass the valiant soldiers, and they nevertheless fired. That her last words were - "Courtesan - yes, spy - never!" That the youngest soldier fainted during this execution and much more.
Modern historians are increasingly inclined to the version that the only fault of this fatal woman was too much love for men in uniform and, as a result, a compromising relationship with someone from a high-ranking French army elite.