Video: Three aspects of Mata Hari: dancer, spy, courtesan
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
They call her the most famous spy of all times and peoples. Her name has long been overgrown with legends and conjectures that have nothing to do with reality. Someone considers her a dear prostitute, a mediocre dancer and an unlucky spy, while others extol her natural charisma and diplomatic abilities. Her name was Margaretha Geertruida Zelle, but she became known to the whole world as Mata Hari.
Margaret Gertrude was born in 1876 in the Netherlands. At 18, she saw an ad in the newspaper: "An officer from the Dutch East India, now on vacation at home, wants to meet a nice girl with the aim of later marriage." Captain McLeod received letters from several girls in response, but the quickest one guessed to attach a photograph to the letter. So Margaret Zelle got married.
In marriage, she quickly became disillusioned. Following her husband to the East Indies, Margaret dreamed of living in Europe. She soon received a divorce and left for Paris. There she first worked as a model, but this did not bring a stable income. She remembered the oriental dances she had seen in the East Indies. At the same time, except for a sense of rhythm, she had nothing - she never danced. Her ex-husband said that she did not know how to dance at all and suffered from flat feet. Nevertheless, the plan worked.
At that time, oriental culture was immensely popular in Paris. Parisians willingly believed in the story of an oriental dancer, who presented herself as the daughter of either a Buddhist priest or an Indian princess. The exotic dances made a great impression on the male audience.
She was reputed to be the highest paid courtesan in Europe. One of the wealthy fans invented her the pseudonym Mata Hari - "Eye of the Day", or "Light of the Day." Journalists wrote: "Mata Hari is the personification of the poetry of India, her mysticism, her passion, her languor, her hypnotic charm." She said about herself: "I never knew how to dance, but people liked my performances, most likely because I was naked."
Mata Hari toured all over Europe. It is believed that at this time she became a spy. At the same time, in pursuit of money, little understanding of politics and military affairs, she was a double agent of the French and German special services.
Historians argue that the French secret services, in support of their nonexistent successes in the fight against German espionage, were profitable to sacrifice Mata Hari. Although, besides the fact that she agreed to espionage, neither the French nor the Germans felt any other visible results of her activities. However, she was sentenced to death for espionage and was shot in 1917. After her death, historians suggested that most likely she, being an inexperienced spy, did not pose a serious danger and simply became a victim of her own fame and lifestyle. In other countries, spies faced the same fate, they did not escape it and 5 spies executed in the USSR
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