Mata Hari
The name Mata Hari is common with spying, intelligence, trickery, and sensuality. The woman who adopted this name is Margaretha Zelle who was born on August 7, 1876 in Netherlands. She was the second child of Adam Zelle and was the only girl in a family of four boys. Adam Zelle had a successful business where he kept his family in comfortable circumstances. When Adam Zelle went bankrupt, the family moved from its large house in one of the better parts of the city to a tiny, shabby house in a poor section. Adam left them to go to Amsterdam to try his luck there, leaving his wife to look after four children by herself where after 2 years she got sick and died.
Margaretha was forced to leave school. She then moved to her uncle’s house.
She then got married to Rodolphe Macleoy and gave birth to two children one who died at age of 2 beacuse of food poisoning
They got divorced where Margaretha moved to Paris leaving her child behind with her ex-husband.
She wanted a new life so she baptized herself with a new name: Mata Hari meaning the sun.
She began her career as an exotic dancer and a high school prostitute.
She became a prostitute for wealthy clients and to many important high-ranking military men and politicians. This put her in a very good position to gather information. During World War 1, the Netherlands remained a neutral nation, enabling Mata Hari, a Dutch national, to cross national borders freely where she worked as a spy for the Germans . On one occasion she admitted to a British that she was working as a spy for the French. However, the French never confirmed or denied this. The French intercepted a coded message from the Germans saying they had gained much useful information from a German spy code named H-21. From this information, suspicion fell on Mata Hari and she was arrested in her hotel room in Paris. They revealed that she was a double agent. The French then executed her where she refused to put on a blindfold, instead she was
Margaretha was forced to leave school. She then moved to her uncle’s house.
She then got married to Rodolphe Macleoy and gave birth to two children one who died at age of 2 beacuse of food poisoning
They got divorced where Margaretha moved to Paris leaving her child behind with her ex-husband.
She wanted a new life so she baptized herself with a new name: Mata Hari meaning the sun.
She began her career as an exotic dancer and a high school prostitute.
She became a prostitute for wealthy clients and to many important high-ranking military men and politicians. This put her in a very good position to gather information. During World War 1, the Netherlands remained a neutral nation, enabling Mata Hari, a Dutch national, to cross national borders freely where she worked as a spy for the Germans . On one occasion she admitted to a British that she was working as a spy for the French. However, the French never confirmed or denied this. The French intercepted a coded message from the Germans saying they had gained much useful information from a German spy code named H-21. From this information, suspicion fell on Mata Hari and she was arrested in her hotel room in Paris. They revealed that she was a double agent. The French then executed her where she refused to put on a blindfold, instead she was