The name of Mata Hari has become synonymous with spying, espionage, intrigue, and sensuality.

The woman who adopted this name was born Margaretha Zelle on August 7, 1876 in Leeuwarden, Holland. She was the second child of Adam Zelle and his wife Antje van der Meulen and was the only girl in a family of four boys. M'greet was the nickname her family gave her.

Her father was extremely indulgent of his vivacious, brilliant daughter, with her sparkling black eyes and lustrous hair. He called her an “orchid among buttercups” and encouraged her flair for the melodramatic and natural impetuosity. She wove convoluted, mysterious plots of her ancestry, often telling schoolmates that her cradle stood “in Caminghastate”. This was a mansion in Leeuwarden and the seat of a noble family. Her tales and outlandish behavior won her many admirers, enthralled by her personal magnetism.

When Margaretha turned 13 her father went bankrupt. His flourishing hat business had fallen like a house of cards due to his ill-advised forays into the stock market. The family had no choice but to sell off their elaborate furnishings and home and relocate to a shabby corner on “the other side of the tracks”. Adam Zelle left his family to try his luck in Amsterdam. Antje became depressed upon her husband’s desertion and died when her daughter was a mere fifteen.

Adam Zelle attended the funeral but could not, or would not, take his children. His offspring were summarily distributed amongst their relatives. M’greet, as she was called, went to live with her godfather in Sneek. She was immediately made to feel both an outsider and a charity case. Her height of 5"10 did not help matters in the least because she towered over almost everyone she encountered. At a distinct disadvantage in acquiring suitors her godfather, Heer Visser, suggested that she entertain the notion of becoming a kindergarten teacher. She realized that she would have to find a livelihood and entered a school for teachers run by Heer Wybrandus Hannstra in Leyde.

The school emphasized strict disciplinarianism and M’greet tended to treat her charges as kindred spirits. Struggling with the effort to keep her sympathetic tendencies under control she was swamped by indecision when the school’s proprietor, Heer Wybrandus, confessed that she infatuated him. What he suggested was far from respectable and M’greet bore the brunt of the social disgrace and scandal that ensued.

She sought refuge in the home of her uncle, Heer Taconis. She performed various domestic chores in an effort to ingratiate herself to the family good enough to take her in. She turned eighteen and began considering the matrimonial state. Her prospects were minimal because of her height and small cleavage-she cut a regal figure among her voluptuous, more easily approached cousins.

One evening, as she was browsing the paper, and advertisement caught her eye. It was placed in the personal section of the newspaper without the knowledge of its supposed solicitor. The ad read, “ Officer on home leave from Dutch East Indies would like to meet girl of pleasant character - object matrimony”. This officer was Rudolf MacLeod, an aging officer whose heavy drinking had only exacerbated his health problems. He had returned to Holland out of necessity and was in desperate need of a caretaker, whether or not he admitted it. Margarethe was immediately captivated by the advertisement, and viewed it as an escape from her present demeaning situation.

The two met, and despite the vast difference of two decades in their ages, were soon professing their love for one another. Because she was only eighteen M’greet had to obtain the permission of her father to wed -she secured this blessing and they were wed a scant three months later. There was much gossip as to the cause of such a hastily made arrangement-but the gossip was not borne out. M’greet gave birth to a son, John Norman, more than a year later.

The bright bubble of her newly found happiness soon dissolved. Mr. Macleod was a dissolute womanizer who had no compunction whatsoever about indulging in his vices of gambling and drinking. He was seldom home and his presence was one of stifling abuse and insult. He began to use violence against his wife as a means of control and domination. When her husband informed her that they would be moving to Java she was overjoyed. She looked forward to a change in scenery and habit.

Java was everything she had imagined it would be. The friendly people, lush vegetation and rich culture enchanted her. Unlike the other wives of her circle she embraced the native dress and wore sarongs rather than the assortment of European garments that served as impediments. The marriage deteriorated into a virtual imprisonment in which her husband?s jealous rages often resulted in marital rape. He openly took a concubine and flaunted his ability to do so and her lack of authority in such matters.

Despite Rudolf’s admonitions M’greet learned to speak Malay and became close to the servants. They helped her through the difficulty of her second pregnancy, during the monsoon season. She gave birth to a girl, Jeanne Louise, called by the Malay name Non, by her mother. McLeod was transferred to Sumatra, where he would be commander.

Several months passed before he sent for his family. When he did it became M’greet’s responsibility to give lavish parties. She excelled at this and was able to charm her guests in their native language. MacLeod was proud of her accomplishments and the strain of their marriage eased somewhat.

On June 27, 1889, the world came crashing down about their ears. M’greet was awakened by screaming. She burst into the nursery to find her children writhing in their beds. The room stank of a foul, black vomit. M’greet held the children while Rudolf went in search of a doctor. When they returned Norman was dead. It was widely thought that the children had been poisoned in an act of revenge perpetrated by a mistreated servant.

The marriage fell into its former state. Rudolf drank more heavily and blamed his wife for the death of their son. M’greet fell ill of typhoid and this contributed to her husband’s disgust. Finally realizing that she did not have a liability to remain in a relationship that was so counterproductive to the raising of her daughter, Margarethe filed for divorce.

Birth of Mata Hari, The Eye of Dawn

“My dance is a sacred poem in which each movement is a word and whose every word is underlined by music. The temple in which I dance can be vague or faithfully reproduced, as here today. For I am the temple. All true temple dances are religious in nature and all explain, in gestures and poses, the rules of the sacred texts”.

So proclaiming she began the first sinuous supplication of herself before the seated statue of the Hindu god Siva. Dressed in diaphanous gowns, an ornate headdress and bejeweled brassiere she began her reign as the most sought after woman in all of Europe. She used her exotic beauty to captivate both her audience and her patrons, and, while she became famous for elevating the striptease to an art form, remained deeply unhappy.

As the applause grew more persistent, and the accolades and offers were showered upon her in abundance, Margarethe wanted nothing more than to see her daughter Non. In the eyes of the court she had abandoned her family by suing for divorce and so her former husband was entitled to withhold her maternal rights. He would not allow her to see their daughter.
From 1905-1912 she dominated society. She was both loathed and lavished, called a visionary and a harlot. When her age began to show in the thickening of her waist and the loss of elasticity in her muscles she was forced into retirement by her own better judgment. She made the swift transition from entertainer to courtesan and enjoyed the distinction of having her choice from a bevy of admiring patrons. Several sources indicate that she was exceptionally talented in the art of pleasing men.

She made an appearance in Germany on May 23, 1914. Her show was decried as indecent and the local police were summoned. The policeman sent to investigate the disturbance, Griebel, was also entranced by her performance. The accounts vary but it is obvious that Griebel approached Mata Hari and that through this connection she became acquainted Traugott von Jagow, rumored to have been in charge of German espionage. Some historians believe that Margarethe attended a school of espionage, located in Antwerp, Belgium, at the behest of von Jagow. Those who believe Mata Hari guilty of all the crimes she was accused of insist that it was at this school that she acquired the code name “H 21”.

The tensions between France and Germany were becoming intolerable to Mata Hari. She claimed she felt uncomfortable in Germany as she had lived a considerable time in Paris. She departed Germany on August 14, 1914. Two days after the outbreak of World War I.
After much delay Margarethe ended up in Paris once more. There was substantial fodder in the rumor mill to suggest that her gallivanting about Europe and her intimacy with a German patron confirmed her identity as a spy. She heatedly denied these allegations and was angered to realize she was being followed.

While in Paris she met a Russian officer named Vladimir Masloff. Though he was twenty years her junior a passionate romance developed between them. Masloff received orders to return to the Front and received an injury that resulted in the loss of sight in his left eye. Mata Hari redoubled her efforts to obtain a generous provider in order to protect them both.
Vladimir was recuperating in a military hospital located near Vittel. In order to visit him she had to obtain a special permit that allowed her to cross into the official war zone. She had been denied such access on numerous occasions when she met Georges Ladoux. He was the head of the French Army’s counterespionage organization. He proposed that she consider spying on the Germans for the French. She considered it because it could be a very lucrative profession.

She accepted the offer and was dispatched to Belgium to complete her mission. Three years later she stood accused of espionage by the French courts and faced the penalty of death. The capricious details of the extent to which she contributed to the wartime intelligence effort on either side are unknown. It has been verified that she received monies from both sides but it is unclear as to whether or not useful information was received by them in return. There are those that claim the entire trial was a fabrication and that a great miscarriage of justice occurred when Margarethe Zelle was executed.

The recent release of controversial documents by British intelligence indicates that there was no concrete evidence against her. A case has been opened in an attempt to vindicate her name and establish her innocence. “ Mata Hari was in the wrong place at the wrong time and forced by the French state to take on the sins of an era”., stated Thibault de Montbrial, the barrister in charge of the investigation. It has been suggested by various contemporaries that she was nothing more than a scapegoat. We may never know the truth of the matter and, for now, it is open to speculation. Margarethe Zelle was a bright, though brief, flame. 

Mata Hari always was and will always be an enigma. She’s the most notorious of all women spies (although her guilt has never been conclusively proven), an expert seductress, she was afraid of nothing. While women like Mata Hari have long fascinated us in literature and lore, Mata Hari was a real person, and the very model of the quintessential Femme Fatale.

Even today, the intrigue surrounding Mata Hari survives. Was she truly a spy? Did she acquire and sell secrets to the Germans? In October, 2001, the Mata Hari Foundation and Dutch lawyers representing her hometown filed a lawsuit in Paris asking for a new trial, claiming she was the victim of a conspiracy. 

Tag: Mata Hari, The Eye of Dawn