Mata Hari's Real Name: Margaretha Geertruida Zelle

Quick answer: Mata Hari was born Margaretha Geertruida Zelle on August 7, 1876, in Leeuwarden, in the northern Netherlands, according to France's Service historique de la Défense (SHD) and Encyclopaedia Britannica. After marrying, she was known as Margaretha MacLeod; the UK National Archives catalogs her file under that married name. France executed her at Vincennes on October 15, 1917, after a military court convicted her of spying for Germany.

Real name and early life

Britannica says Margaretha Zelle was the daughter of a prosperous hatter who lost the family's money when she was a teenager. Her parents divorced, and after her mother's death in 1891 she lived with relatives and later attended a teachers' college in Leiden. A UK government history blog says her father's business failed when she was 13 and her mother died less than two years later.

In 1895 she married Captain Rudolph MacLeod, an officer in the Dutch colonial army, and they lived in Java and Sumatra from 1897 to 1902. The marriage broke up, and she moved to Paris.

Career highlights

Britannica says she began dancing professionally in Paris in 1905 as Lady MacLeod and soon renamed herself Mata Hari. The SHD says her performances mixed oriental dance and striptease, and her success let her perform across Europe. SHD documents seized at her arrest show she was Dutch-born, contradicting the legend she told journalists that she was Indian.

Espionage case, trial, and execution

This section covers the official outcome only. The UK blog says British authorities questioned her twice during the war and found nothing incriminating, concluding that if she was a spy she was "an ineffective amateur." French counterintelligence chief Georges Ladoux recruited her to spy for France, while French officials suspected she was also working for Germany.

The SHD says she was arrested in Paris on February 13, 1917, and held at Saint-Lazare prison. Britannica says a military court tried her on July 24–25, 1917, and sentenced her to death. The SHD says the 3rd Council of War found her guilty of dealings with the enemy, and she was shot at Vincennes on October 15, 1917.

Britannica says her guilt is widely contested. Officials blamed her for up to 50,000 French deaths without evidence. Germany publicly exculpated her in 1930, and French documents released in 2017 led many to see her as a scapegoat.

Name notes for searchers

Britannica explains that Mata Hari is a Malay expression for the sun, literally "eye of the day," and the SHD gives the same meaning. Records list her under several forms: Margaretha Geertruida Zelle, Margaretha MacLeod, and the French form Marguerite Gertrude, which appears in the UK National Archives catalog.