The Story of Mata Hari (1876–1917)
Exotic dancer (and spy)
The Dutch exotic dancer Mata Hari, whose real name was Margaretha Geertruida Zelle, was killed in the First World War. She was convicted of espionage and executed in France.
Mata Hari was born in Leeuwarden on 7 August 1876, the eldest daughter of a milliner. At first, the family is relatively well off, but when the father goes bankrupt they have to make do with less luxury. While the father moves to The Hague, where he later on even marries another woman, the rest of the family stays behind in Leeuwarden. In 1891 her mother dies and Margaretha is put under the guardianship of an uncle in Sneek. Later on, she moves to another uncle in The Hague.
There, in 1895, she reacts to a contact advertisement from the more than twenty years older Rudolph MacLeod (called John), a professional office from the Dutch East Indies. After the two meet in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the engagement is declared within a week. Margaretha Zelle is then eighteen years old. After the marriage ceremony, the two move in with MacLeod’s sister in Amsterdam. A few years after the ceremony, the couple moved to the Dutch East Indies. Together they have two…
