Born in 1876, Mata Hari (originally named Margaretha Geertruida Zelle) and her siblings were split up among various family members at a young age following her mother's death. With little future prospects in mind Hari decided to answer an advertisement for a Dutch captain in the East-Indies searching for a mail-order bride. At just 19 Hari marries Rudolf MacLeod and thus begins the start of their rocky liquor-fueled marriage. After nine years Hari and MacLeod's marriage deteriorates and Mata Hari decides to move to France and start a new career in exotic dancing.
Mata Hari took Paris saloons by the horns, becoming one of the most iconic exotic dancers of the time. Anything "oriental" was found exciting and Hari had the perfect dark and mysterious air about her that the audience loved. A reporter from Vienna characterized Mata Hari as "slender and tall with the flexible grace of a wild animal, and with blue-black hair." Her face, he wrote, "makes a strange foreign impression." Hari's experiences in the Indies also helped her performances because she was very in touch with "oriental" culture and style.
After a while, however, younger dancers started to take the stage and steal the spotlight from Hari. Now in her 40s and clearly done with her dancing career Mata Hari decides to seduce and escort high ranking government officials during the course of World War I. Hari's extensive travels and connections then start to undergo surveillance from French and British intelligence, who were starting to think of ways to utilize women in war.
In 1916 Hari accepts a well-paying assignment to spy for France by captain Georges Ladoux. Her contacts and lovers were believed to hold great intel for the Allies so Hari went into the mission planning to seduce her way into German high command.
During one of Hari's missions, she began to flirt with a German officer, throwing him random bits of gossip to hopefully catch something even more important. Eventually Mata Hari's name was mentioned in German war correspondence that was intercepted by the French. Many historians believe that the Germans knew Hari was a spy for the French, so they set her up in a telegram to make it seems like Hari was a double agent for the Germans. Other historians, however, believe that she was also working with Germany.
Eventually French officials arrested Hari for espionage, and in 1917 she was thrown into Prison Saint-Lazare. Many argue that the trail and sentence for Mata Hari was extremely biased, sloppy and deliberate; exploiting her career as an exotic dancer/escort and assuming her guilt based off of her number of lovers. After less than 45 minutes the military tribunal came back with a guilty verdict.
Mata Hari was executed on October 15th by a firing squad. The exotic dancers name merited a legacy that is still talked about today and shortly after her execution New York Times is found calling Hari "a woman of great attractiveness and with a romantic history."
Many books and films have been created about Mata Hari including the 1931 film Mata Hari, starring Greta Garbo as the exotic dancing spy. Even to this day, however, there is mystery and doubt concerning Hari's alleged double agency.
