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Mata Hari

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Deanna Witmer
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« on: October 15, 2007, 11:20:43 pm »



Mata Hari, exotic dancer and convicted spy, made her name synonymous with femme fatale during World War I.

Mata Hari was the stage name of Margaretha Geertruida (Grietje) Zelle (7 August 1876, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands – 15 October 1917, Vincennes, France), a Dutch exotic dancer and courtesan who was executed by firing squad for espionage during World War I.
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Deanna Witmer
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« Reply #1 on: October 15, 2007, 11:21:43 pm »



Margaretha Zelle was born in Leeuwarden, Friesland in the Netherlands, to Adam Zelle, owner of a hat store, and Antje van der Meulen, both born and raised in Friesland [2]. When she was 6, the family moved to Leiden. In 1891 her mother died and her father went bankrupt. At 18 Margaretha married a Dutch naval officer named Rudolf MacLeod in Amsterdam. They moved to Java and had two children. Their son died in 1899, possibly of complications relating to the treatment of syphilis contracted from his parents, though the family claimed he was poisoned by an irate servant. After moving back to the Netherlands, the couple divorced in 1903, with Rudolf retaining custody of his daughter, who died at the young age of 21, also possibly from complications relating to syphilis. [3]

That year, Margaretha moved to Paris, where she performed as a circus horse rider and went by the name Lady MacLeod. Struggling to earn a living, she also worked as an artist's model.

In 1905, she began to win fame as an exotic Oriental-style dancer. It was then that she adopted the stage name Mata Hari, the Indonesian and Malay word for 'sun' (literally "Eye of the Day").

Promiscuous, flirtatious, and openly flaunting her body with a mystique that captivated both her audiences and the public, Mata Hari was an overnight success from the debut of her act at the Musée Guimet on March 13, 1905.[4] She was so successful that she became the long-time mistress of the millionaire Lyon industrialist Emile Etienne Guimet who founded the Museum. She posed as a princess from Java of priestly Indian birth, pretending to have been initiated into the art of sacred Indian dance since childhood. In those days it was quite easy for someone possessing a flamboyant personality to invent a character, and present it as fact with a good chance of success due to the limits on telecommunications available, as well as widespread European ignorance of non-European cultures.[citation needed] She was photographed numerous times during this point in her career in either scant clothing, or ****. She brought this carefree provocative style to the stage in her act, which led to wide acclaim.

Although the explanations and claims made by her about her origins were total fiction, the act was spectacularly successful because it elevated exotic dance to a more respectable status, and so broke new ground in a style of entertainment for which Paris was later to become world famous. Her style and her free-willed attitude made her a very popular woman, as did her willingness to wear or perform in exotic and sexually explicit clothing. She posed for provocative photos, and mingled in wealthy circles.

Mata Hari was also a successful courtesan, and had relationships with many high-ranking military officers, politicians and others in influential positions in many countries, including France, Russia and Germany. She was not known for being remarkably beautiful, but her spirit was overflowing with eroticism.

In happier times prior to World War I, she had been generally viewed as an artist, a free-spirited bohemian, but as the times grew more grim she began to be seen by some as a wanton and promiscuous woman, and perhaps a dangerous seductress. Her relationships and liaisons with powerful men took her across international borders frequently, which eventually would lead to her downfall.

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Deanna Witmer
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« Reply #2 on: October 15, 2007, 11:22:47 pm »



Postcard series by Walery, 1906.

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« Reply #3 on: October 15, 2007, 11:24:10 pm »




During World War I, the Netherlands remained neutral. As a Dutch subject, Margaretha Zelle was thus able to cross national borders freely. To avoid the battlefields, she travelled between France and the Netherlands via Spain and Britain, and her movements inevitably attracted attention. She was courtesan to many high-ranking allied military officers during this time. On one occasion, when interviewed by British intelligence officers, she admitted to work as an agent for French military intelligence, although the latter would not confirm her story. It is unclear if she lied on this occasion, believing the story made her sound more intriguing, or if French authorities were using her in such a way, but would not acknowledge her due to the embarrassment and international backlash it could cause.

In January 1917, the German military attaché in Madrid transmitted radio messages to Berlin describing the helpful activities of a German spy, code-named H-21. French intelligence agents intercepted the messages and, from the information they contained, were able to identify H-21 as Mata Hari. Remarkably, the messages were in a code that German intelligence knew had already been broken by the French, leaving historians to suspect that the messages were contrived so that, if she was in fact working for the French, they would be able to unmask her as a double agent and effectively neutralize her.

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Deanna Witmer
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« Reply #4 on: October 15, 2007, 11:25:06 pm »

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« Reply #5 on: October 15, 2007, 11:25:47 pm »

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Deanna Witmer
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« Reply #6 on: October 15, 2007, 11:26:36 pm »

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Deanna Witmer
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« Reply #7 on: October 15, 2007, 11:27:23 pm »

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« Reply #8 on: October 15, 2007, 11:29:06 pm »



Mata Hari after her arrest.


On 13 February 1917, Mata Hari was arrested in her Paris hotel room. She was put on trial, accused of spying for Germany and consequently causing the deaths of tens of thousands of soldiers. She was found guilty and was executed by firing squad on 15 October 1917, at the age of 41.

Theories suggest that France used her execution to distract attention from their (publicly regarded) failure of command at the war front.

Pat Shipman's biography Femme Fatale goes so far as to argue that Mata Hari never really was a double agent. He assumes that she, being a foreign courtesan, was possibly used as a scapegoat, by the head of French counter-espionage, Georges Ladoux, who had been responsible for recruiting Mata Hari as a French spy and later was arrested for being a double agent himself.

The facts of the case remain vague, because the official case-documents regarding the execution were sealed for 100 years. Details might become clearer when documents are revealed in France sometime in 2017.

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« Reply #9 on: October 15, 2007, 11:30:46 pm »



Disappearance and rumours

Mata Hari's body was not claimed by any family members and was accordingly used for medical study. Her head was embalmed and kept in the Museum of Anatomy in Paris, but in 2000, archivists discovered that the head had disappeared, possibly as early as 1954, when the museum had been relocated. Records dated from 1918 show that the museum also received the rest of the body but none of the remains could later be accounted for.

The fact that a former exotic dancer had been executed as a spy immediately provoked many rumours. One is that she blew a kiss to her executioners, although it is more likely that she blew a kiss to her lawyer, who was a witness to the execution and a former lover of hers. Her dying words were purported to be "Merci, monsieur". Another rumour claims that, in an attempt to distract her executioners, she flung open her coat and exposed her naked body. "Harlot, yes, but traitor, never," she is reported to have said. A 1934 New Yorker article, however, reported that at her execution she actually wore "a neat Amazonian tailored suit, specially made for the occasion, and a pair of new white gloves" though another account indicates she wore the same suit, low-cut blouse and tricorn hat ensemble which had been picked out by her accusers for her to wear at trial, and which was still the only full, clean outfit which she had along in prison. Yet another rumour had it that Mata Hari was unusually composed at the execution, refusing to be tied or blindfolded — and that this is because the firing squad was to be bribed to use blanks for a fake execution, but the plan failed.
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Deanna Witmer
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« Reply #10 on: October 15, 2007, 11:32:29 pm »



The Execution of Mata Hari in 1917. [[1]] states the following: "Das Foto wird in vielen Quellen als authentische Darstellung gezeigt, eventuell wurde die Szene aber auch für den Film aus dem Jahr 1920 nachgestellt." meaning that many sources show this as the actual execution, but it could also be a reconstruction for the movie of 1920. According to author Russell Warren Howe, it is indeed a reconstruction for the movie. No known photos were taken at the actual execution.
 
Source http://www.greatwardifferent.com/
 

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Deanna Witmer
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« Reply #11 on: October 15, 2007, 11:34:18 pm »




Legend and popular culture

The fact that almost immediately after her death questions rose about the righteousness of her execution, plus rumours about the way she acted during her execution set the story. The idea of an exotic dancer working as a lethal double agent, using her powers of seduction to extract military secrets from her many lovers fired popular imagination, set the legend and made Mata Hari an enduring archetype of the femme fatale.

Much of the enduring popularity is owed to the film entitled Mata Hari (1931) and starring Greta Garbo in the leading role. While based on real events in the life of Margaretha Zelle, the plot was largely fictional, appealing to the public appetite for fantasy at the expense of historical fact. Immensely successful as a form of entertainment, the exciting and romantic character in this film inspired subsequent generations of storytellers. Eventually, Mata Hari featured in more films, television series, and in video games — but increasingly, it is only the use of Margaretha Zelle's famous stage name that bears any resemblance to the real character. Many books have been written about Mata Hari, some of them serious historical and biographical accounts, but many of them highly speculative.

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Deanna Witmer
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« Reply #12 on: October 15, 2007, 11:36:00 pm »

Death Comes to Mata Hari
by Henry G. Wales 

International News Service, October 19 1917: concerning the death of the spy Mata Hari


Mata Hari, which is Javanese for Eye-of-the-Morning, is dead.

She was shot as a spy by a firing squad of Zouaves at the Vincennes Barracks. She died facing death literally, for she refused to be blindfolded.

Gertrud Margarete Zelle, for that was the real name of the beautiful Dutch-Javanese dancer, did appeal to President Poincaré for a reprieve, but he refused to intervene.

The first intimation she received that her plea had been denied was when she was led at daybreak from her cell in the Saint-Lazare prison to a waiting automobile and then rushed to the barracks where the firing squad awaited her.

Never once had the iron will of the the beautiful woman failed her. Father Arbaux, accomapanied by two sisters or charity, Captain Bouchardon, and Maître Clunet, her lawyer, entered her cell, where she was still sleeping - a calm, untroubled sleep, it was remarked by the turnkeys and trusties.

The sisters gently shook her. She arose and was told that her hour had come.

"May I write two letters?" was all she asked.

Consent was given immediately by Captain Bouchardon, and pen, ink, paper and envelopes were given to her.

She seated herself at the edge of the bed and wrote the letters with feverish haste. She handed them over to the custody of her lawyer.

Then she drew on her stockings, black, silken, filmy things, grotesque in the circumstances. She placed her high-heeled slikppers on her feet and tied the silken ribbons over her insteps.

She arose and took the long black velvet cloak, edged around the bottom with fur and with a huge square fur collar hanging down the back, from a hook over the head of her bed. she placed this cloak over the heavy silk kimono which she had weeb wearing over her nightdress.

Her wealth of black hair was still coiled about her head in braids. She put on a large, flapping black felt hat with a black silk ribbon and bow. Slowly and indifferently, it seemed, she pulled on a pair of black kid gloves. Then she said calmly:

"I am ready."

The party slowly filed out of her cell to the waiting automobile.

The car sped through the heart of the sleeping city. It was scarcely half past five in the morning and the sun was not yet fully up.

Clear across Paris the car whirled the Caserne de Vincennes, the barracks of the old fort which the Germans stormed in 1870.

The troops were already drawn up for the execution. The twelve Zouaves, forming the firing squad, stood in line, their rifles at ease. A subofficer stood behind them, sword drawn.

The automobile stopped, and the part descended, Mata Hari last. The party walked straight to the spot, where a little hummock of earth reared itself seven or eight feet high and afforded a background for such bullets as might miss the human target.

As Father Arbaux spoke with the condemned woman, a French officer approached, carrying a white cloth.

"The blindfold," he whispered to the nuns who stood there and handed it to them.

"Must I wear that?" asked Mata hari, turning to her lawyer, as her eyes glimpsed the blindfold.

Maître Cluent turned interrogatively to the French officer.

"If Madame prefers not, it makes no difference," replied the officer, hurriedly turning away.

Mata Hari was not bound and she was not blindfolded. She stood gazing steadfastly at her executioners, when the priest, the nuns, and her lawyer stepped away from her.

The officer in command of the firing squad, who had been watching his men like a hawk that none might examine his rifle and try to find out whether he was destined to fire the blank cartridge which was in the breech of one rifle, seemed relieved that the business would soon be over.

A sharp, crackling command, and the file of twelve men assumed rigid positions at attention. Another command, and their rifles were at their shoulders; each man gazed down his barrel at the breast of the woman which was the target.

She did not move a muscle.

The underofficer in charge had moved to a position where from the corners of their eyes they could see him. His sword was etended in the air.

It dropped. The sun - by this time up - flashed on the burnished blade as it described an arc in falling. Simultaneously the sound of the volley rang out. Flame and a tiny puff of greyish smoke issued from the muzzle of each rifle. Automatically the men dropped their arms.

At the report Mata Hari fell. She did not die as acctors and moving-picture stars would have us believe that people die when they are shot. She did not throw up her hands nor did she plunge straight forward or straight back.

Instead she seemed to collapse. Slowly, inertly, she settled to her knees, her head up always, and without the slightest change of expression on her face. For the fraction of a second it seemed she tottered there, on her knees, gazing directly at those who had taken her life. Then she feel backward, bending at the waist, with her legs doubled up beneath her. She lay prone, motionless, with her face turned towards the sky.

A non-commissioned officer, who accompanied a lieutenant, drew his revolver from the big, black holster strapped about his waist. Bending over, he placed the muzzle of the revolver almost - but not quite - against the left temple of the spy. He pulled the trigger, and the bullet tore into the brain of the woman.

Mata Hari was surely dead.
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Deanna Witmer
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« Reply #13 on: October 15, 2007, 11:38:20 pm »

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« Reply #14 on: October 15, 2007, 11:39:26 pm »

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