In October 1917, a woman was shot for treason in the Bois de Vincennes, east Paris. She was a dancer, not a soldier. was born in a country that was not involved in the war. And unlike the hundreds of thousands who disappeared in the trenches, both his life and his death became the stuff of legend. Geertruida It was Margaretha Zelle-McLeod, an adventurous Dutch exotic dancer and courtesan, better known by his nom de tables, Mata Hari (Eye of the Day, in Malay), the same who invented the striptease in 1905. Was executed, at age 41 after being tried behind closed doors by a court martial that the past blamed for military secrets to the Germans. The transcript of the proceedings of the trial, which had originally been forbidden to the public until 2017, has just been published in a book, Mata Hari - Autopsy of a plot (Editions Italiques). Its author, a Resistance hero, Leon Schirmann, 82, added other documents for ten years of methodical research in the national archives of Germany, France and Britain. "Every piece of evidence not only confirms that Mata Hari was victim of a lie patriotic establishment French foist someone interested in military disaster and hardship of the civilian population in 1917, a year - highlights Schirmann-in which the French army mutinied and the allies came to contemplate the possibility of defeat. " Their findings were eloquent enough to convince the authorities of the city of Leeuwarden (the capital of the region of Friesland, the North-Holland) of the innocent who until then had been the "black sheep" among the natives. Thus, ten days ago formally asked the French justice minister, Marylise Lebranchu, the reopening of the case in order to exonerate posthumously. Lebranchu agreed to open the dossier, but ordered that the issue be reviewed by a court, which issued in the coming days. "France must, by its own prestige, clean the soiled reputation. The only crime of Mata Hari was to have been the perfect victim: foreign manifestly immoral and a woman who enjoyed ostentatious life as the French soldiers perished in the muddy battlefields as the Chemin de Dames, "said Thibault de Montbrial, the lawyer representing the Dutch community. Many of the stories told of their waste - as his alleged toilet-milk baths are exaggerations. But no one can deny that the lady liked to live large. When the British intelligence service MI5, for example, stopped for a few hours in Dover, in 1916, found who traveled with 10 trunks containing, inter alia, 11 pairs of shoes and 33 pairs of socks. That was, however, the least of his sins. Because if there something that can be said without risk of error is that she was the "mother of all inventions." Enough to know his true story to prove it.
Margaretha was born on August 7, 1876 at the home of a seller of hats, uniforms and fancy goods. An environment that quickly stimulate their imagination rather than, as the rest of the Dutch bourgeoisie, he grew up taking classes in English, French, German, learning to play the piano and good manners. At 13 years, the world of Victorian beliefs collapsed. His father went bankrupt and before finishing on the street was sent to live with an uncle in The Hague. But there the young man supremely bored, and so began his first "re-invention" by answering an ad in search of a bride in a newspaper placed by a Dutch officer of Scottish origin, Rudolph McLeod. Three months after their first meeting they were married. He was 39, she 18. After the wedding, emigrated to the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) where the handsome captain was quick to reveal his cruel nature as a rapper husband, a lover of the bottle and other skirts. Things came to a dramatic epilogue when the couple's first child, Norman, died poisoned by a servant who wanted to avenge the rape of a daughter by the employer. To escape the scandal, McLeod returned to Holland. There they separated. Not good because, claiming a false adultery, the captain was spared to maintain and won custody of her daughter Non. Penniless and entirely abandoned, Margaretha arrived in Paris to seek his fortune in 1903. It is installed on a pension that pays posing as a model. But that race not excited and sets sail to Holland. In 1904 he returned to the City of Light. And this is where the most spectacular rushing their metamorphosis. Is housed in a sumptuous hotel, fill your wardrobe with best of the fashion houses of the time and announce to the press makes the arrival of Mata Hari, the Indian princess in the sacred dances started by Buddhist monks in Malaysia. Paris immediately succumbed to the deception. "No dancing at all but I knew how to undress and move your body gradually, slim, slender and proud - Colette once wrote in Le Figaro. He came to the gigs practically naked, dancing loosely with downcast eyes and wrapped disappeared veils. " charade took the Olympia Theatre in Paris at La Scala in Milan and from there to the best clubs in Madrid, Berlin and London. Began to manufacture cigarettes with your name, figure decorated bottles of liquor ... Everything was making millions who did not hesitate to exchange furs, jewelry and banquets. Such was their frenzy consumer who sometimes had to appeal to their affair, jumping from a colonel to a banker in search of someone who would satisfy their whims. War in full apotheosis surprised, but in Berlin. His one-year contract in the Metropol-Theater was canceled and creditors, immune to his charms, he seized all its fur. The barrel of the abundance proved to have substance when its bank refused to allow her to remove money from their own. Mata Hari returned to the Netherlands, again, without a penny. In 1915, the German consul in Amsterdam offers become a spy for about $ 2000. Lots of money for the time, little to Mata Hari. "I agreed to get back the business that the Germans did to my skin. I thought it was the best way for you to get some money. Meretriz, yes, traitor, never!" Was the torn explanation of the episode that gave the Lady during questioning tragic. A year later, in Paris, the diva met two men who would cost you your life. A young Russian officer, Vladimir Maslov, who is madly in love. The head of French counter Georges Ladoux, who after much prodding was recruited as a spy $ 200,000. The not-so-young ballerina planned to use that money to take Maslov nest and get rid of the rest of her lovers. Its mission was to travel to Belgium and to seduce the German officers capable of revealing war plans. To mislead the Germans, Mata Hari went first to Spain and from there took a boat in the direction of Ostend. But to make a stop in Dover, British intelligence found it suspicious and sent back to Madrid. Willing to meet with the French, Mata Hari was seduced there by German Post Arnold Kalle. Or at least that's what I thought. To open the mouth, Mata Hari was given as information top-secret rumors that he had read in French newspapers. Kalle realized, and to take warning, sent a telegram to Berlin using a code that I knew had been deciphered by the French which he described as the "agent H21." The French knew that the Germans were aware of the neutralization of the code and that the dancer was not nothing but a liar. But in February 1917, Mata Hari was arrested in Paris, closed-door trial and sentenced to death. The newspapers said he had confessed in prison. The films, starring as Greta Garbo, showed her throwing kisses to the firing squad or by displaying a chest in defiance. Truth paints another picture. Schirmann rescued from the trunk of censorship a series of articles by journalists who witnessed the scene. Mata Hari died protesting his innocence, wearing a modest black dress. "He showed unprecedented courage, he left with a smile on his lips as in the time of his greatest triumphs on the stage," said one of the chroniclers. The mystery, however, continues. After being put to death, the authorities ordered that his head was displayed, along with 5000 other criminals in the Museum of Anatomy in Paris. A macabre act disguised as "scientific interest." A year ago, to make an inventory, the museum's curator Parisians discovered with horror that the embalmed head of Mata Hari was gone. Nothing is yet known of his whereabouts.
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