Spies are more than likely the type of people that we know to exist within the pages of history books or on the screen of a fictional movie rather than individuals we could list off by name. To the general public, they represent a sense of both craftiness and notoriety, transporting encrypted messages from one country to the other. Female spy work, in particular, is a more narrowed down sector of spy work that we know even less about. We may be familiar with spies generally from the 1980’s during the Cold War, but most of us didn’t have high school history classes that honed in on specific female spies. Does the name Mata Hari ring a bell? If it doesn’t, then buckle up for a fascinating introduction to arguably the most famous female spy in the world. The work of female spies, such as Mata Hari, is more notably seductive and glamorous in nature, adding different layers to them as spies that we don’t often see with their male counterparts.
Test Your Knowledge on the notorious Mata Hari with a quick quiz, and enjoy several newfound tidbits on the most famous female spy in history!
Introducing the ever famous Margaretha Geertruida MacLeod, better known by her Dutch dancer name, Mata Hari…
- The extent of Hari’s work is controversial in nature, but it is generally known that she was a spy for Germany during World War I.
- Hari’s East Indian dances could be considered the origination of how she began working as a spy; she was instantly deemed a sensation all throughout Paris due to the seductive and beguiling nature of her dances. Overtime, this led to quite a number of liaisons with various men throughout Europe, most markedly with military officers.
- There is some evidence to suggest that Hari was monetarily bribed by a German consul to obtain information while away on her upcoming trip to France. She claimed to have accepted money from the German consul but maintained that she merely provided obsolete information.
- Supposedly, she later agreed to serve as a French spy without having communicated any part of her relationship with Germany to French intelligence. As time went on, the French arrested Hari on account of their suspicions that she was double-dealing and attempted to blame her for the death of some 50,000 French soldiers.
- Without any true evidence, she was sentenced to death and shot by a firing squad. As you can imagine, everything about her espionage remains contentious to this day, with both a film and various novels to tell her tale.
