Hot History - Mata Hari - The Femme Fatale

Episode Date: August 23, 2024

Hello Hello! Today we are looking at the very first femme fatale - Margaretha Zelle aka Mata Hari. Mother, turned Exotic dancer, turned businesswoman, turned Spy, who is Mata Hari and how did she meet her grisly end? Tune in and find out!

Hello, everyone and welcome back to Hot History, the podcast where we cover the things in history that you probably should know, but don't. My name is Ainsley and I am so excited to have you listening along as we dive into the scandals, people and moments that shape our past. And today, we are talking about the woman who is considered the very first femme fatale, the illustrious and enigmatic Margarita Zeal, aka Matahari. Class is in session. Marta Hari, the name evokes images of exotic dancers, espionage and a dramatic trial that concluded with a firing squad. But who was this woman really? Was she the glamorous spy of popular imagination or was she a victim of circumstance? Let's explore the life of Margaratha Zeal, better known as Matahari. So Margarita Zeal is born on August 7, 1876 in the Netherlands

and she is expected to live a pretty comfortable life. She is the daughter of a prosperous hatter. The family does develop its own fortune. However, this would not be the case. For when Marguerith was in her teens, her dad's business went all but tits up and he lost all the family money, which led to her parents' subsequent divorce.

Now, sadly for Margarita, the tragedy would not end there. for in 1891, her mother dies and she is sent to live with her aunt and uncle. Now, a recurring thread throughout this is that nothing can really keep Margarita's spirit down. And despite despising living with her aunt and uncle, she was considered by all to be pretty outgoing and confident. She plays the piano, takes dance lessons and is already learning a little French at her dandy elite school. However, obedience and good behaviour are not her strong points and she unfortunately did not complete her schooling. Her results went downhill and after her mother's death, her aunt and uncle was still really

determined for her to make a living for herself and sent her to a teacher's training college for kindergarten kids. However, her career is short-lived when she is suspended after just one year after she was rumoured to have been caught in an amorous state with the school principal. Now, sick of the life under her aunt and uncle, Margarita, looks for the easiest and quickest way out. Marriage. At only 18, she came across a contact ad in the newspaper stating, an officer on leave from the Dutch East Indies is looking for a woman to marry. And so she decides to respond. And on a drizzly Sunday in March, she meets Rudolph MacLeod, known as John in Amsterdam at the Rijks Museum.

Now, he's 39 years old. He is a hardened professional soldier of aristocratic descent. And as a captain, in the Royal Dutch East Indies Army, he is temporarily on sick leave in the Netherlands, but is soon to return to the Indies. Now, seeing him as her ticket to freedom, Margarita and John are engaged after only six days and married on July 11, 1895 at the City Hall of Amsterdam.

Less than a month after this, the pair pack up and leave for the Dutch East Indies, which is modern-day Indonesia, where they live an initially pleasant life. John is a prominent officer and he's given a residence in a large house with servants and the two start their family shortly after. First, with their son, Norman John, and then with their daughter, Louise Jean, nicknamed Nonny. With a picture perfect family, the pair should have been ecstatic. However, not all is as it seems.

Now, John is a hot-tempered man who is used to giving orders. He's an alcoholic, deeply unfaithful, and constantly in debt. Now, Margueratha referred to as Margaret, has an equally fiery temper. And as an elegant young woman, she doesn't leave the men unmoved. and she knows it, flirting with many of the local offices, much to her husband's fury. But still, she accompanies John at dinners, parties and dances where she finds a real passion, being far more in her element than at home as a mother. Now, she is entranced by the local customs, particularly its dancers, and joins a theatre company

where she meets incredible performers in Java and Sumatra, who teach her how to move and dance. Now, she later reflected that her time in Java in particular, absorbed amongst the local dancers at the theatre was some of the best of her life. However, it would not last. For when John retires as a major, the family of force to move to an isolated village. Now, separated from her friends and theatre,

Margaret is deeply unhappy, and the marriage is on the verge of collapsing as John becomes more and more violent with his wife, and things would go from bad to worse, in the early summer of 1899, when the pair's children become seriously ill. Now, being so isolated, the army doctor is delayed in reaching their home and unfortunately is too late. For when he arrives, little Norman, two and a half years old, dies. But nonny, just a year old, pulls through, although barely.

Now, John and Margaret are inconsolable, especially given the highly suspicious circumstances in which the children died. Now, there are lots of theories here, but the story goes that the children were actually poisoned by their nanny, who had become disgruntled with John and Margaret's constant fighting. However, it is more likely that Norman died of treatment for syphilis. You see, John had always had the disease and passed it on to his wife, Margaret, who in turn infected her children with it,

through birth. As a result of this, the family are treated as advisors, being the army doctors while they were in the Duchy's Indies, with Mercury, as is customary at the time. However, as we now know, Mercury is incredibly toxic and it is most likely that it is this that killed their son. Now, the pair already on the verge of separation never recovered from Norman's death, and a year and a half after the move, they returned. back to the Netherlands and shortly after arriving, they divorce. Now initially, Margaret is given custody of Nonny, but John refuses to pay her alimony, which makes it practically impossible for her to provide for both herself and her daughter, and as

such, she is forced to give up her four-year-old daughter to John and basically ends up on the street at the age of 26. But she doesn't accept defeat easily. a constant thread throughout her life and begs John's cousin Edward after many previous attempts to regain custody of her daughter, warning him that if he doesn't try to convince John to grant her custody, that she will no longer try to stay decent, in which he shouldn't be surprised if his name is disgraced by her taking up modeling. I'm tired of fighting against life, and I want one of two things, either nonny with me and to be a decent mother, or I'm going to live, as I'm so wonderfully offered here.

Now, John, of course, once again ignores her, and so Margaret leaves the Netherlands for the city of love. Arriving in Paris in 1903, she begins looking for work as a companion and model and gives lessons in piano and German conversation, but she does not make near enough money to support herself and returns to the Netherlands now desperate and penniless and begins work as a prostitute, earning enough to return back to Paris in June 1904, this time for good.

Now, it is here our story really begins, for we say goodbye to Margaratha, for from her ashes rises the phoenix of Matahari. In Paris for good, she decides to capitalize on the things she has most abundance of, her appearance. Told that she was beautiful since she was a child, Margaret knew she was an object of men's desires and begins flaunting it. With her experiences from Java, she creates erotic Indian temple dances, which are a mix of exotic, mysterious and sensual, which is exactly what the public wants. And on March 13, 1905, she had her breakthrough. Under the stage name Matahari, Malay for Eye of the Day, she performs in music. Guamé. The entire Parisian elite is present and she is an instant sensation. Now the newspapers, the press, are ecstatic and Madahari is now officially one of the most

famous women in Paris. And it's not hard to see why. Apart from the obvious that she was basically a strip tease master, Margaret herself is a deeply enchanting woman. She is remarkably tall, incredibly stylish, eloquent and ultimately charming, becoming the epitome of grace and elegance amongst Europeans at the time. Everywhere she goes, eyes are on her, and she becomes so popular that she regularly appears in magazines, including Vogue. Now, Madahari was finally living her life to the fullest, and it was all made possible by the huge amounts of money she would earn across Europe. Now, during her heyday, it was estimated that she received 10,000 francs, the equivalent of 37,000 euros today for a single show. And she is so popular that her name is used for cigarettes, liquor, and all matter of other merchandised products.

And she earned so much money that in 1907 she was actually a short-lived millionaire. But it didn't last long because she spent the money as quickly as it comes in. Love that for her. So after Matahari's triumphant debut, she begins touring. She hits up all the famous theaters in Europe. We're talking the Scala in Milan, the Olympia in Paris, and the opera of Monte Carlo, where her trademark costumes are on full display. Now, always decked out, in a richly decorated hairdress,

she would adorn a rich variety of exotic jewelry, combined with the sparkling brassiere with translucent veils that she winds around her body. A true artist and seductress, she attracts crowds of men and women alike. But it was men that defined her life, both for good and for bad. So it's no surprise that wherever Margaret is, she always had lovers. She was a professional mistress who liked to flirt and have her suitors line up for her in droves. and her type was usually the same. They were high-ranking officers and nobles,

all of whom had deep pockets. Now, it's interesting to me how good of a businesswoman she really was because she did not need these men's money. She was making so much from her dancing, but she essentially diversified her income stream and had these men finance her extravagant lifestyle from 1908 all the way up to 1912. Now, one of these men was the French banker Rousseau, who rented a castle for Margaret and later a villa with a carriage, riding horses and staff.

Another lover gave her 300,000 rites mark just under 900,000 euros today, as a gift because they were parting ways after his wife discovered his affair with the star. All in all, she was the most desired woman in Europe, whose string of lovers in all positions of power and government. gave her an equally strong political power if she chose to use it, which lands us right in the middle of 1914. Now, things are not the best amongst the European powers at this time, and on August 3rd, 1914, Germany declares war on France. And we have World War I, and everything changes. Now, performing is no longer an option for Matahari,

and she is forced to depend entirely on her lovers for income. Again, a smart business woman for having this as an option. However, it was an option that would come back to haunt her. You see, because the Netherlands is neutral, Margaret is allowed to travel freely through Europe. In fact, she was actually in Berlin when the First World War breaks out, and this is important, for it is here at this time that shit hits the fan. from the German point of view, she's declared a citizen of the French and therefore an enemy

and her assets are frozen by the bank and to her grand indignation. Germany confiscates her belongings, including her precious fur, coats, furious. She leaves Germany to try her luck elsewhere, but everywhere she goes, she attracts male attention, great for business but bad for politics for some of these men are particularly. particularly, how should we put it, unsavory, which is where we find the French POV. Her ability to attract and seduce the attentions of men, lure them to bed and have them spill their dirty secrets was something that made her the perfect candidate for espionage. And with some of her men being high-ranking German officers, the French, along with other parties, including the British, suspected her of being a spy. and as such she had intelligence officials watching her like a hawk.

At this stage, Madahari is sick and tired of floating around Europe and wants to go back to Paris to get her dancing career off the ground again. But unfortunately, it is in vain. Paris is war-torn. Many of its young men are fighting in the war and many copycats emerged faking her routines and leveraging directly from her success. So she decides to go to the Hague again. What she doesn't know, however, is that wherever she goes,

she's being shadowed by intelligence agencies, the British, the French, the Germans, they're all watching her. And on one evening, in May 1916, Margaret receives a visit from the German Council of Kramer in the Hague. He knows she's going to Paris and wants to recruit her as spy. And as a travelling artist, she's extremely suitable for this. and Kramer asks her if she wants to collect intelligence of all kinds as Agent H21. Now he already offers her 20,000 francs, about 50,000 euros today. Although Margaret thinks that's not enough, but she still takes it in her own words with the plan,

never to do anything other than take the money. But she could use it and after all she sees it as payment for the fur coats the Germans stole from her in 1914. Back in Paris, Margaret resumes her glamorous life and kind of puts the Germans plan to the back of her mind. She has no intention of actioning it. She just wants the money to live her life. And she conceives a plan to make a trip to Vitelle, a luxurious spa right near the front line. But she's not just looking for a spa day. She's traveling to Vettel to meet the man she has truly fallen in love with, a young Russian captain.

Now because Vatel is in the military zone, Margaret obviously needs a special travel permit, so she goes and sees another of her lovers who refers her to the Immigration Office, located at 282 Boulevard Saint-Germain. However, the headquarters of the French Intelligence Service also happens to be located there, and they are very eager to speak with her. So she ends up in the office of Captain Lodou, the head of the French Intelligence Service, who has been warned about Margaret by the British, and for him, it was a gold mine of information. Truly, Lidou's day could not have gotten any better.

Here, he wins her trust and approves her travel document, and although the surveillance has yielded nothing yet, he is convinced that she is spying for the Germans and that this trip will prove it. So Margaret goes to Vitelle, she comes back and Lidou sets his trap. He makes her believe that he wants to recruit her as a French spy for the Belgium area. Margaret also senses an opportunity and asks for the main prize. A million francs, about 2.5 million euros. Now there are many criticisms one can make of Margaratha throughout her life. But for me, the main gripe is that this woman is so out of touch with reality.

She needs approval to travel close to the front so she can go to a spire and see her lover. And despite that lover facing the horrors of war, she's asking for a huge sum of money. Now, I'm not here to judge. In fact, I do commend her ability to generate such huge sums of money. All of her own fruition. come back from when she was being, you know, defeated. She's been near homelessness three times to date, so I do commend her tenacity. But she gets herself into trouble, time and time again, out of greed.

And we really see that Madahari's loyalty lied in money, not in people or nation. But still, she says yes to the French and is told that she will receive further instruction in the Netherlands, after which payment will follow when the mission is completed. But the mission is a bust, and so Margaret decides to improvise. She does show here, I think, anyway, that she did genuinely want to help the French, but, you know, open to interpretation. Anyway, she travels to Madrid, where she seduces major Calais, or Calais, I don't know, I'm going to say Calais, a woeful, woeful man who just so happened to be a German major.

and she identifies herself as a German spy and passes him some what she described as harmless information. Now at the same time, she approaches the French Colonel Devigny, who she informs that she's a French spy. She tells what information she's obtained from Kaleigh and asks him to pass this on to the French intelligence services. Now, it's so confusing here. I mean, she's either the best double agent or the worst. But at the same time, she's off chatting to the French. The German major sends a series of telegrams to the German intelligence services. And he reports that Agent H21 has told him and asks for advice on her payment.

Kind of checks out for her behaviour historically, so probably not a total lie here. But the telegrams are intercepted and decrypted by the French, and they conclude that Agent H21 must be Margarita. And this is the smoking gun that they are looking for. However, Carly sends this message in a code that the Germans knew the French had broken, so it is likely that she was a woeful double agent and the Germans suspected her of working for the French, wanted to land her in it, and on Tuesday morning, February 13, 1917, she is arrested on suspicion of espionage for the German enemy. Now we fast forward three months here to May 21st, 1917.

and Margueratea Zeal has been held in a Paris prison for the entire time, locked up and treated, quote, as an ordinary prostitute. Now, after 10 rounds of interrogations, all including torture, she's mentally broken and decides to spill the beans. She tells Ladoo that, yes, she took money from the Germans. Yes, she was codename H-21, but she certainly never actually spied for Germany. But her plea is unsuccessful, and the chief of her plea is unsuccessful, and the chief investigator is convinced of her guilt.

In the end, we don't really know if she was a double agent or indeed a spy at all. And really, the precise truth didn't matter at the time. During World War I, French troops were in incredibly bad shape and France could use a public success. So even before the trial begins, Margaret knows that she is already lost. So on July 4th, Margarita is officially charged with pro-German espionage activities, and while they cannot prove that she actually provided the Germans with incriminating information, it doesn't matter. Under military law, simply maintaining contact with the enemy is tantamount to guilt.

She is sentenced, with the harshest of punishments, giving what they describe as arguably the greatest female spy of our century, the death penalty. On October 15th, 1917, Margaret is taken from death row to the firing range. Refusing to be defeated or scared, Margaratha has decided to face her executioners with her head held high. She does not want her hands tied and refuses the traditional blindfold. Now, some eyewitnesses even claim that she even blows a kiss to her accusers one last time before the platoon opens fire.

And just after sunrise, the famous Mata Harrow. is dead at 41 years old. Now the reactions to this news are varying. Some European newspapers cheer, hailing the unmasking of this femme Patel. Meanwhile, the French state is auctioning Margueritha's possessions to pay off the cost of the trial, and it is here that things get so fucked up. After her death, her body was donated to a teaching hospital, but her head is embalmed and put on display in the Museum of Anatomy in Paris.

Now, it is not known when her head actually came off display, but it was and it was moved into the archives. Or was it? You see, in 2008 years after her death, the head of Matahari could not be found when the archivists were going through their records. Realising this, they dug deeper, and her body was also missing,

A case striking and eerie resemblance to that of another incredibly famous woman of her own time, Marilyn Monroe, whose own body went missing for several hours following her death. Now, while we don't know what happened in either of these cases, if it's simply administrative error or something more sinister, it is interesting that we have two women, both of whom are the most famous sex symbols of their time, being unable even in death. to escape objectification. Summed up well, I think, by the ladies of Anne Berlin, who would not allow men to touch their queen's body out of fear that she would be handled unworthily by inhumane men. A truly grisly end of the most famous and desired woman in Europe. But the execution of Matahari is also big news in the Netherlands,

and it is there that one important player we have not mentioned in a while finds out about the news. Marguerath's daughter, Noni. Now, why she did not really know her mother, the shame for Noni by association is great and made far worse by the fact that she was a young woman who looked near identical to her famous mother. So Noni feels she has no option

but to flee for the Duchess Indies as a teacher where she suddenly dies on August 10th at only 21 years old from a fatal cerebral hemorrhage. Now, with Margaret's death, a legend is born. The first film about her life will be released within two years and many more will follow. From Greta Garbo's Matahari in 1931 to Jean Maro's Matahari in 1964, the combination of cold-blooded spy, evil man-eater and bewitching femme fatale, has an irresistible Hollywood appeal.

Matahari receives television series, musicals, pop songs and ballads, historical novels and scientific studies and she has perfumes, liqueurs and cigarettes that appear all over the place. But Margaratha's fabulous life leaves many biographers speculating wildly, and unfortunately, a motley crew of writers have produced hundreds of books, often loosely based on the truth. In the end, her fame lives on in everything, proving that despite her death, Matahari is ultimately immortal. And that brings us to the end of another episode of Hot History. Thank you so much as always for listening along with us. And be sure to tune in next week as we get down and dirty with the man who started the First World War.

German Kaiser Wilhelm the second.