Mata Hari

1876 – 1917

Mata Hari, born Margaretha Geertruida Zelle, was a Dutch exotic dancer and courtesan who performed in Paris in the years before the First World War and was executed by French firing squad in October 1917 after being convicted of espionage on behalf of Imperial Germany. She had accepted payments from German diplomatic agents and was assigned the codename H-21 by German intelligence, though her trial was conducted under wartime emergency rules and the surviving evidence has since been judged thin by many historians. The French government's case framed her as responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Allied soldiers during a year of catastrophic French battlefield losses.

Last checked: May 10, 2026, 1:06 PM