Culture Re-View:
Mata Hari sentenced to death for suspected espionage
By Saskia
O'Donoghue • Updated: 25/07/2023
On this day in 1917, Mata Hari was sentenced to death in Paris for
allegedly spying on Germany’s behalf during World War I. Was she really a
secret agent or just a scapegoat?
On
25 July, 1917, the exotic dancer failed to convince a military tribunal of her
alleged innocence. They took less than an hour to find her guilty and agree on
the death penalty.
Born
in 1876, Mata Hari quite possibly set the standard for people who are ‘more
than meets the eye’.
Her
name wasn’t even Mata Hari and she certainly wasn’t raised in a sacred Indian
temple and taught ancient Indian dances by a priestess as she long claimed.
In
fact, she was born Margaretha Geertruida Zelle in Leeuwarden, a small town in
the Netherlands.
The daughter of a hat shop owner, she was desperate for adventure
from her youth. At the age of 18, she answered a newspaper advert placed by
Dutch Colonial Army Captain Rudolf MacLeod who was looking for a wife. The pair
married soon afterwards.
Following
the birth of two children - one who died as a baby - and a tumultuous marriage,
Zelle moved to Paris where she eventually reinvented herself as Mata Hari.
She
was influenced by her time living with MacLeod in the Dutch East Indies - now
Indonesia - and developed a ‘Hindu’-inspired dance act.
The early days of Mata Hari
Initially
performing under the name Lady Gresha MacLeod, she would cast off a series of
colourful robes and veils until she was left nearly nude.
Her
willingness to dance almost naked saw her act go from strength to strength, as
did the adoption of her stage name Mata Hari - a Malay phrase meaning ‘eye of
the day’.
The
new moniker added to her mystique and audiences were entranced by her creative
dance moves. Her success spawned myriad imitations until she performed the
last show of her career in March 1915.
By
that year, she was known more as a courtesan, famous for her relationships with
high-ranking military officers, politicians and other influential and powerful
figures.
As
the First World War approached, Hari was mostly seen as a free-spirited
bohemian, but as the conflict grew ever closer, critics increasingly saw her as
a dangerous seductress.
By
the start of the conflict in 1914, Hari was forced to leave Berlin for her
neutral homeland of the Netherlands, where her apparent career in espionage
began.
Pat Shipman
Anthropologist
While
the details of Hari’s career as a spy remain sketchy, it is thought to have
begun in late 1915.
According
to historians, she was approached by Karl Kroemer, the honorary German consul
in Amsterdam. He considered her a valuable asset, due to her influential
contacts and ability to cross national borders freely thanks to her Dutch
citizenship.
Hari
later confirmed she had accepted the 20,000 francs offered for spying for the
Kaiser but denied taking part in any espionage. Nevertheless, she was assigned
a German codename - H21.
There
are countless reports of her allegedly spying for the Germans throughout the
conflict but it’s likely many of the accusations were unfounded.
“When
she was arrested the war was going very badly for the French and she was a
foreigner, very sexy, having affairs with everyone, and living lavishly while
people in Paris had no bread”, biographer and anthropologist Pat Shipman
has explained, adding, “There was a lot of resentment against her”.
In
the book ‘Femme Fatale: Love, Lies and the Unknown Life of Mata Hari’, Shipman
compared Hari to Marilyn Monroe in the 1960s. She was recognisable
internationally and considered to be one of the most desirable women in Europe.
“This
is part of why it is so ludicrous to think she was a spy”, said Shipman. “She
couldn't be clandestine and sneak around. She couldn't help but attract
attention”.
Hari’s
constant travelling across Europe, though, soon attracted the attention of
British intelligence, who suspected her of being an enemy agent. They had asked
their French allies to keep an eye on her too, but she became a spy for that
nation.
She
continued to dive into relationships with high-ranking military officials from
Germany and Russia, making her name synonymous with the archetypal femme
fatale.
The beginning of the end
In
December 1916, the French War Ministry accused Mata Hari of communicating the
names of six Belgian spies to the Germans.
On
13 February 1917, she was arrested and charged with espionage and confined to
Paris’ Saint-Lazare prison. Hari spent months under interrogation, always
denying any involvement in spying but speaking openly of her sexual pursuits.
“A
courtesan, I admit it,” she said. “A spy, never!”
Over
the last 106 years, historians have not been able to decide whether Mata Hari
was actually guilty of many of the charges levelled against her. While
some academics say there is enough evidence to prove she was a wide-ranging
spy, countless others suggest she was used as a scapegoat.
There
have even been reports that the sensation of her arrest, trial and death
sentence was put in place to raise morale in France during one of the darkest
periods of the war.
A rigged trial?
Mata
Hari’s espionage trial commenced on 24 July 1917. Despite huge holes in the
evidence about the secrets she might have passed to the Germans, the
prosecution blamed her for the deaths of thousands of Allied soldiers.
They
also pointed to her numerous affairs as apparent proof she had been gathering
intelligence for the enemy.
In
his closing statement, prosecutor Andre Mornet said, “the evil that this woman
has done is unbelievable”, adding: “This is perhaps the greatest woman spy of
the century”.
The
next day, the military tribunal judging Mata Hari took less than an hour to
find her guilty and sentenced her to death.
The
true extent of her espionage will likely never be known for certain and the
general consensus is that it was her independence and lifestyle choices which
led her to become a distraction for the huge losses the French army was
suffering on the Western Front.
On
15 October, 1917, she was driven to a field on the outskirts of Paris. Refusing
a blindfold, she was placed against a wooden stake and executed by a firing
squad of twelve French soldiers.
