Mata Hari’s very plain truth

Associated Press

PARIS – Mata Hari. For decades, the name has conjured up images of beauty, sex and betrayal against a backdrop of high-stakes wartime espionage.

But in truth, a historian says, the fabled exotic dancer who was executed by France as a World War I spy was an elegant but naive woman who liked living and spending big and wasn’t very good at either dancing or spying.

His research has prompted an effort to review Mata Hari’s 1917 death sentence in court, on the claim that the Dutch dancer and courtesan worked ineffectively for both Germany and France and was sent to the firing squad by French officials eager for a wartime scapegoat.

“Was Mata Hari a spy for the Germans? Yes, but a bad spy, who never did anything,” says Leon Schirmann, an 82-year-old scholar of wartime trials who spent a decade studying the case. “France needed to have a scapegoat, and she was a perfect target. She certainly didn’t deserve to be executed.”

Schirmann’s research, culled from government archives, some classified, in France, Germany and Britain, formed the basis for a request to reopen the case, lodged this week with the French Justice Ministry in the names of both a Dutch foundation and Mata Hari’s hometown of Leeuwarden.

Schirmann, whose second book on the case will be released next week, says documents show that French wartime officials falsified evidence, trying to show Mata Hari was an important spy for the Germans until the end of her life.

Only Justice Minister Marylise Lebranchu can reopen the case. A ministry official asked Wednesday would say only that “the case file is being examined in the same way as any other file of its type.”

Mata Hari, immortalized by Greta Garbo as the ultimate glamorous spy, was the daughter of a hat merchant, born in 1876 with the name Margaretha Geertruida Zelle. At barely 19, bored at home, she married a Dutch captain and accompanied him to what is now Indonesia.

They separated in 1903, and Margaretha went to Paris, where she soon took the name Mata Hari – “Eye of the Dawn” in Malay – and started a career as an exotic dancer. She told journalists she was from Indonesia and had learned sacred dances in Buddhist temples. “In truth, she was the first real striptease,” Schirmann says.

“She hardly danced,” commented the famous French novelist Colette at the time. “But she knew how to slowly remove her clothes, revealing a long, slim and proud body. She arrived at her recitals practically nude, danced vaguely with lowered eyes, and then disappeared, enveloped in veils.”

Mata Hari was a huge success, performing across Europe – the Olympia Theater in Paris, La Scala in Milan, Madrid, Berlin. “There were cigarette boxes with her face on them,” Schirmann says. She made lots of money, but spent even more. She became a courtesan to supplement her income.

With the outbreak of World War I, Mata Hari, almost broke, was forced to return to the Netherlands. It was there, according to a full-page historical account in Le Monde newspaper this week, that the Germans, in the fall of 1915, offered her a chance to spy – money in advance. With the new code name of H21, she returned to Paris, spent the money and did precious little else, Schirmann says.

Soon after, Mata Hari fell madly in love with a Russian captain. At the same time, French intelligence approached her to change sides. Since France was allied with Russia, “the cause seemed just,” Le Monde wrote. Now 40 years old, she went to Spain to seduce the German military attache in Madrid.

She succeeded, but the attache was suspicious, and in December 1916 sent a telegram to Berlin that Schirmann claims was really intended for the French to intercept. The coded missive clearly spoke of information Mata Hari had provided. The French duly decoded it, and, Schirmann says, used it to prove she was still working for the Germans.

“When you want to punish someone, sometimes you arrange it so your adversary will do it,” Schirmann says.

Mata Hari was condemned to death on July 25, 1917. On Oct. 15 – 84 years ago this week – she dressed calmly and was taken to the firing squad. Legend says she blew the squad a kiss, but Schirmann says she merely refused the blindfold, lifted her eyes and smiled.

“Her smile astounded those present,” Schirmann says. “It was her last performance, and it added even further to her legend.”