When it comes to female spies, people always give them a mysterious color.
In the history of world espionage, there is a beautiful female spy, after her death, her head was put into a museum, but mysteriously disappeared.
Her life was tragic and lamentable, and there were many opinions about her.
Her name is Mata Hari, and she walks through the smoke clouds of a century-old history into her story.
1. Fallen into despair
Marta Harri, whose original name was Margaretha Zelai, was born in 1876 to a wealthy white family in the Netherlands, and as the youngest daughter in the family, she grew up with the whole family in the palm of her hand and carefree.
When Margaretha was 13 years old, her father's business was becoming depressed, and she lost another stock speculation business, and had to sell her property to pay off debts, and the family moved from a mansion to a slum.
Overnight from heaven to hell, my father could not bear to fail, and went to the big city to find a chance to make a comeback, but never returned.
In 1891, when Margaretha was 15 years old, her mother died in pain. Margaretha and her brothers were separated and adopted by relatives or churches, respectively.
A few years later, Margaretha grew into a tall girl, and a marriage advertisement in the newspaper caught her attention. It read: "An officer on leave to visit relatives, looking for a cheerful girl".
The lonely Margaretha is like a lone sail in the ocean, eager to meet a big ship and save her from the storm.
She tried to connect with each other, and the moment she saw them, she felt "saved."
The soldier was Rudolph, who had fought bravely and won many battles, but he was 22 years older than Margaretha, about the same age as her father. Years and wars have left a cruel mark on him, his beard is gray, his body is no longer healthy, and diabetes has plagued him for a long time.
But Margaretha longed for a home too much, and she was attracted to Rudolph's military demeanor and the medals she wore, and the two soon fell in love.
In 1895, at the age of 19, Margaretha married Rudolf, 41. A year later, their son was born.
▲ Wedding photo of Margaretha and Rudolph
Margaretha thought she had finally found the harbor for the rest of her life, but in exchange for only disappointment after disappointment.
Her husband did not give up the vices of being single because he was married, and often hung out with all kinds of women and did not come home drunk until the early hours of the morning.
To this end, he began domestic violence, confiscating his hands even when Margaretha was pregnant.
Later, Rudolph was transferred to work and the family moved to the unfamiliar island of Java.
He even publicly married a local woman as a concubine and told Margaretha that the custom was common here and that she had to adapt.
▲ Margaretha and Rudolf
All this, Margaretha endured silently.
In 1898, she gave birth to her second child. They thought that the birth of their daughters would save their precarious marriage, but God's mischief did not end there.
One summer night, the sleeping Margaretha was awakened by the child's terrible screams, and she rushed into the room to find the two children convulsing and foaming. She painfully realized that it was a symptom of poisoning.
In the end, the younger daughter was rescued, but the son was unfortunately killed.
No one knows who inflicted the poison, and there are rumors around that it was someone's revenge, possibly a servant who had been wronged by Rudolph, but because there was no evidence, it was lost.
The unfortunate couple did not comfort each other because of the common trauma, but fell into their own quagmire.
Margaretha often sat dumbfounded, not speaking, for hours at a time. Rudolph, on the other hand, turned his anger to her, blaming her for her son's death, either in cynicism or in the punches and kicks.
With the death of his son, in 1903, the marriage of the two also came to an end.
In those days, it was shameful for a woman to ask for a divorce, but Margaretha filed a separation application in court.
The court ordered Rudolf to pay monthly alimony, but Rudolph refused to pay and published a revelation in the local newspaper: the vicious wife abandoned him and begged everyone not to offer work or help to his ex-wife.
Penniless, unfamiliar with life, and unable to find a job, Margaretha had to leave her daughter to be raised by her ex-husband.
She had no skills, no husband, no children, no job, no income, and the world seemed to have no place for her.
She gradually became depressed, was she going to spend her life like this? Is it possible that the rest of your life can only survive on relief?
2. A twist of fate
In the midst of desperation, Margaretha mustered up her last courage. With the help of her relatives, she scraped together enough money to survive in paris of her dreams.
The city was as dazzling as she had dreamed of, and she went to a circus as a jockey and worked part-time as an art model.
To welcome her new life, she gave herself a new name: Marta Harry. Sanskrit means "Mother of The Gods", and Indonesian means sun.
She began to try to perform oriental dances, and to this end, she concocted a mysterious and dreamy life for herself — she claimed to be a descendant of an Indian monk who grew up in the temple of Lord Shiva and was ordained as a priest, learning the sacred dances of Hinduism.
Unlike white people with white skin and blonde eyes, Margaretha grew up with thick black hair, black eyes, and wheat-colored skin, so the lies she made up seemed real.
On March 13, 1905, she performed for the first time at the Musée Gimmé in Paris, captivating all the audience with her mysterious and seductive body with oriental culture.
After the performance, the applause was deafening.
The name "Marta Harry" became famous overnight, and since then she has taken many photos of her revealing clothes and even nudes, and also danced striptease on stage, which stimulated people's senses and was warmly sought after.
With her seductive temperament and sexy and feminine image, she successfully took the entertainment industry in Paris to a new level and brought her performances to other countries in Europe.
She also came into contact with many rich and powerful people, and for the sake of money and wealth, her private life became more and more indulgent, and gradually changed from a dancer to a socialite and even a prostitute.
Constantly navigating between the military and political dignitaries of France, Germany and Russia completely led her to the road of no return.
3. Double Agent
During World War I, the Netherlands was a neutral country, and as a Dutch national, Marta was able to travel freely between countries.
And it is precisely because of this special status that she has attracted the attention of the militaries of various countries.
By chance, marta recalls, she was received by MI5 officers and promised him a spy for the French army, as a reward for her.
In order to obtain intelligence, Marta became the mistress of a senior German officer, and obtained a large amount of intelligence from the German military from him.
The spy battlefield has always been full of strange clouds, and a dramatic scene occurred.
In January 1917, the German army sent a telegram to headquarters in Berlin describing the large amount of intelligence gathered by a German spy code-named "H-21". French intelligence intercepted the information and deciphered the entire contents, quickly determining that the H-21 was Marta Hari.
Marta was considered a two-faced, profitable double-agent, and in February 1917 she was arrested by the French at her home in Paris.
Marta strenuously denies that she is a double agent, that she has been serving France from beginning to end, and that Germany is killing people with knives.
Although there was no conclusive evidence, the French court sentenced Marta to death.
Everyone present sympathized with this beautiful and charming woman, who had no power to tie her hands, and begged the court for leniency, and her lawyer even knelt before the judge.
Later historians speculated that perhaps, as Marta said, Germany was deliberately counter-calculating.
At that time, France was in an extremely passive position in the First World War, morale was low, hundreds of thousands of Allied soldiers were killed, so the French government was eager to find scapegoats.
Marta Harri was the most suitable person, and if she was a German spy, then naturally she was responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of soldiers.
But that's all a story.
In the early morning of October 15, 1917, Marta was tied up and walked to the execution site at the age of 41.
▲ Before Marta was executed
After Marta's death, her body went unclaimed and was therefore sent to medical school for medical use. Her head was embalmed and stored in the Museum of Anatomy in Paris, where it was not until 2000 that the conservators discovered that it had been lost and was still missing.
Evaluations of Marta were mixed, with posterity reversing her case, believing that her execution by the French was likely a serious miscarriage of justice and calling her "the strongest female spy of the century."
Her story was brought to the big screen, and famous actresses Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich and Jenny Morrow all performed her story.
▲ Stills from "Marta the Witch" starring Garbo in 1931
Her experience has been glorified and ridiculed in various versions, history is nothing more than a little girl dressed up, and it is not known whether Marta Harry is a double-faced spy with more than enough to live or a victim of politics.
But throughout her short life, from a golden body to a prostitute, from the separation of her family to the death of her son, from an innocent girl to an insatiable spy... The wheels of fate kept crushing her, everything was pathetic, but everything was also her own choice.
If it were you, what choice would you make? Text/Yu Ting