On Oct. 15, 1917, the most infamous WWI spy was executed. She had been born 41 years earlier in Holland as Margaretha Zell. She married a Dutch soldier and they moved to Malaysia. It was there that she learned Asian dances. The marriage was a bad one and when the couple moved to Paris, she got a divorce and reinvented herself as the exotic Mata Hari (Malay for “eye of the day”). She told people she was born in an Indian temple and was taught dancing by a priestess. In 1905, she began dancing. She was basically a stripper and men loved her act. She toured Europe. She was also a courtesan to rich men and military officers. When WWI broke out, the Germans thought she might provide valuable information she would learn from liaisons with French military officials. However, the pillow talk garnered no significant intel. Eventually, her handlers tired of her and ratted her out to the French. She was arrested in February, 1917. Her trial was held five months later. It was marked by bias and circumstantial evidence. She was accused of causing the deaths of 50,000 French soldiers. This ridiculous accusation was part of the attempt to make her a scapegoat for French military woes. She did admit to accepting money to spy for Germany. She was sentenced to death for espionage, but this did not take place until several months of mistreatment in prison. The execution was by firing squad. She refused a blindfold and supposedly blew a kiss to the firing squad. Her body was donated to a Paris medical school for dissection. Her head was embalmed and kept in the Museum of Anatomy in Paris, it has since disappeared.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mata_Hari
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/mata-hari-executed
https://time.com/4977634/mata-hari-true-history/
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