Exotic Dancer Turned WWI Spy: Mata Hari

[Music] Hello everyone and welcome back to Spilled. Oh my god wait this is going to be really tricky. Delaney I can't smile fully. You guys I got some fillings at the dentist today because I'm a naughty gal. And they had to numb like half of my face. But it's a bad gal. No I'm not. No accents for Kendall. Not the gal. But gal. I had they had to numb half my face so like the numbing I'm not going to lie to everyone is look he's still there. But hopefully I can talk if you hear a bit of a list it's the numbing and not at all this feature impediment I had when I was a kid. But also if you're watching this video and you're like hmm Kendall's right side of her face is looking a little lazy. Yep you got it right it is very now smiling feels super bizarre right now so I feel like I'm going to laugh and cover my face this whole time because it like that's the face doesn't really move as much. Anywho you guys do not listen to this podcast to hear me talk about myself. So without further ado welcome to our 10th official non-cluding the bonus episode. 10th official pockets episode you guys we have hit over 30,000 downloads were at over 60 to 100 subscribers slash followers of the actual podcast. Thank you so much. We are so excited to have a kick ass 10th episode for you guys and as always wear your hosts Kendall and the lady. And guys don't forget that I refresh our subscriber data every single day so if you haven't already followed please follow along. So I can get a little burst of excitement tomorrow morning. Yeah K is right guys you definitely don't want to miss any of our episodes especially not today's episode because we're talking about an icon. Okay what's new okay we're at spelled you guys know the drill by now we're gonna be it spying on the life little precursor of Mata Hari okay the exotic dancer slash double agent spy. Hello didn't even know that that was possible. What Miss girl did it okay she did it all and she didn't just play both sides of the stage all she played both sides of world war one. I cannot wait to learn more about this. Yeah dude this gilded age batty genuinely played some of the quote unquote smartest men of the war. Which house mark could you be if you gave all your secrets to to the beautiful exotic dancer that's almost that. This just has to be like a tale as old as time like I'm so excited to just listen to men getting swindled by hot women basically a tale is old as time itself let's be real the OG hustlers with Jennifer Lopez. No that's actually one of the references that comes up like when you look up Mata Hari in like media. One of like the main depictions is hustlers so you're on the right page for sure well you guys know how we like to start these things still any will you give us our context. Set the scene for us where are we would be talking about is happening in the world all the juicy stuff that makes the actual story even more interesting. Of course I can so we are in like I said the gilded age okay none other honestly one of my personal favorite times in history. I mean no I wasn't there but I love to learn about it I love the glitz I love the glamour I love glamour. No but no other than us being in the gilded age we are also in the second industrial revolution okay still electricity railroads guys I want you to think that classic just boom of everything okay think railroad culture think grand central station and my second favorite part of this guys. I don't think many people know like kennel did you know that at the same time at the gilded age is going on okay we also have the wild west in I mean if we're talking US like we have the wild wild west. And we also have the gilded age they're so different but also like equally like dramaticized and like actually speaking of dramas has mom been telling you to watch gilded age on Netflix. Or maybe it's a little shut up I literally have that I literally have that written down as one of the things to ask you like has mom has mom been on you about watching gilded age yes she tells me I know what time I talk to her I did start it I don't know if I like understand her. Fever for it but it's good it's just like it's no bridge or 10 but it's good I'm excited to start it I am still finishing vampire diaries like it's November baby gonna move on I know I really do yeah I'm a little behind but we're almost there I'm not gonna have any spoilers but let's just say guys we're nearing the end. It's good because I live in New York City and I really want to like now go uptown and see all those mansions like I really want to go I mean most of them have been turned into really not single family homes but I really want to go up and like look and pretend and worry like you know costume how do we get invited to those balls or gallows if anyone here listening has some connections you just hit me up besides us getting an invite to a luxurious gilded age themed party. We're also in world war one okay that's a very large focal point of today's episode so guys like I said we've got that era okay of glitz of glam of while with gal boys we've got the real roads we've got steel we finally got electricity. And then we got the war so if you watch down to nabby just follow that plot okay kind of understanding that little progression of how things go and with all that sad in 1876 the world gets graced with the birth of Mara Hari but her real name was Margarita Zell now no it's not Margarita my carita. I got cash up I got them oh I got Zell. Zell me. Hey now Margarita Zell claimed to actually be born in an Indian temple so some sources that you look up will say that will say she was born in an Indian temple in reality you know guys this is build okay we dig deeper. We go to the real juicy sources and if you go to our socials you guys will also see the fact that like we found a full on like her case file okay like literally images of a classified case file for her life so again girl we don't use Wikipedia in those hours no we do not guide not to shade our competitors but we get the real facts here spelled look at me say that's a crazy pull. We only speak the truth here and the truth of her birthplace was the Netherlands K1876 she is then raised in a Dutch town in. Oh in the. There's two ease and I don't know if I really you know Lee Lee Warden she's raised in the Dutch town of Lee awarding now in this. Towns such town of Lee awarding she grew up in a very luxurious part of it very luxurious area so again some of this is like disputed I guess you could say between historians but again we found the real facts we found members are delegates goal okay and she had three brothers and lived with her parents her father like we said in a very wealthy area but her father somewhere along the line makes them go broke. That's when our sources get a little bit finicky but he is declared bankrupt and he goes live with his brother and den Hague and Margarita is about 12 years old at this time she stays with her siblings stays with her mother and at this point again dad goes bankrupt mom is like he. It's a it's the late 1880s okay if you can't provide for your family I'm a legally separate from your wife and that's what she did so her parents. So her parents legally separate again she's around each 12 at this point in time and at 14 she leaves to go to school and around this her mom was around 49 years old at this point in time when she reaches the age of 14 and her mom passes away very shortly before she leaves to go to school. So again there's just like a lot of turmoil going on in her in the beginning of her life not not financially originally like she grew up in a very luxurious area that all goes very self very quickly her dad goes bankrupt her parents separate her mom passes away we're all kind of proud of her at this point in time like my girls in college she's getting her education and she I don't know there's a little room she has enough air with the principal I don't even know how I'm gonna say it. Okay Margarita baby she's a baddie she's a baddie what will you say she's a baddie but she's still like 14 or so at this time she's probably 15 at this time so it's like after a year there she's about 15 16 years old - Oh my god. - Um, rumor to have, and it wasn't. like oh she had sex with the principal it was like oh she had enough fair now again y'all we can't shame her for this because you'll see for the dendeline she uses this to her advantage now although this is just a rumor guys if this podcast should teach you anything rumors are history and as the thing goes those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it so don't sleep with your principal or you'll probably be suspended that's the lesson for today it's in case you needed a real historical lesson from the 1800s to know not to sleep with your principal or you might be suspended but just in case you really needed the facts there we give it to you don't worry don't do it so I'll try it didn't work too well and so at age 18 y'all she's still a body okay and she is I don't want to say on the streets at all but miss girls hustlin okay so we're having some minor technical difficulties unfortunately Kendall's connection is now kicking her out of our platform so it's just gonna be me today guys no teacher oh oh no mommy to get mad at me sounds wrong but regardless guys the show must go on this is spilled guys okay we've got work to do so back to where we left off at age 18 okay Margarita she's sitting on her chair she's sitting on her coffee and she opens up her newspaper to see an ad a newspaper ad to marry a much older man army captain Rudolph McLeod okay and she sees this ad she says bitch say say less okay honestly guys let's be real if that were me like if that were you I feel was that easy okay a man can put an ad out in the newspaper like I want a wife sign me up sign me up because I y'all it's hard out here okay it's really hard out here it's cold in these streets and let's just say that would be really nice that would make my life about 10 times easier but she sees this ad she fucking signs up she's like yep let me marry him and travels with him to Indonesia oh talk about a woman on a mission okay they live there for about two years and they have a son Norman John oh Norman John and after again about two years they have their son they leave for the Dutch Indies okay and remember she's with a military man there on the move two years four years classic time and once they moved the Dutch East Indies she gives birth to her daughter Louise Jeanine in India now Rudolph or also called John that was kind of his western given name so if you hear me refer to John I'm talking about Rudolph here he was a man in the newspaper I feel like clearly that meant some criteria was missed and he is a raging alcoholic guy raging alcoholic with a temper yikes kind of those two typically go hand in hand furthermore this man is constantly in debt so this is sounding a lot to me like I don't know Mark Anthony for a step-as-so it's sounding like shit a lot of men from the past not to dog on y'all but alcoholic temper constantly in debt okay and from the outside it really looks like their marriage is heavily subject at this time to infidelity and domestic violence so these are typically things we don't have records for no matter how deep we search for them we typically can't find any record but I personally always choose to believe the words of people in the past rumors or not they were real people real opinions and real lives so we can assume at this point in time guys her life has really not been easy she again she is that turmoil in the beginning of her life she starts to pick up her life she takes it into her own hands and marries this man who with hopes and dreams of this securing her future and this man turns out to be a alcoholic in debt he was most likely subjecting her to domestic violence and her kind of escape was her kind of escape for this was her social life so she was she was a socialite she loved the drama y'all she's not on the stage yet but she loved just being in that atmosphere again we're in the gilded age so you can imagine how complex but like intense the social scene was and her husband was a high-ranking officer and so she really did have that high kind of social status to be able to just get the hell out of her home go socialize and kind of just escape a little bit from from the life she was living so this rough kind of marriage goes on for a minute John ends up retiring and he makes the decision obviously that they're gonna move to a isolated village isolated village y'all obviously Margarita is not gonna like this guy she's a socialite she again like if we can look deeper into her life you could see like this does not make sense for her like what go and isolated I left what so you can drink more be more debt and and and beat me really like that's what you want to do know which no okay and at the same time that he's that he's making these decisions for her which you can tell in her life she's not a woman that's gonna stand for that he's publicly belittling her he's calling her stupid calling her superficial and we have records of these things and again for a woman who has respect for herself respect for her children respect for her reputation and within this time period we obviously know divorce was not easy especially if a woman is trying to divorce her husband but at this point like again she is a strong as woman and she's not gonna stand for that sadly though more hardship seems to follow in her life because in the summer of 1899 her children get sick so her son Norman he's about two and a half years old at this time diets and there are a lot of different theories of how and why he died it's more likely they say that he died for a treatment for syphilis John his father root off passed this on to Margarita so you know later on when you hear her being an exotic dancer many love to point the finger to her rongo it was her husband and he passed it on to Margarita who passes it on to her children it through birth and so they go through this syphilis treatment of mercury toxic mercury okay that was very custom at the time they didn't know that that was probably gonna kill them so that is one of the main kind of backed theories for her son's death Nani who's the nickname for her daughter barely survives this but she does and I just want to add y'all Nani like that's on my baby list like Nani that is going on my baby name list okay I love that name I think that's absolutely adorable but guys she loses so like her husband's meeting her she's being belittled she's getting moved to an isolated island and then her son dies like that is really not an easy life and again for an independent strong woman she's really not gonna deal with that and they go to this isolated island for a few years and in 1902 they end up returning back to the Netherlands they they end up returning back to the Netherlands where Margarita was born and she says enough is enough like I'm I'm done with this I have followed your ass around I've had your children I've lost my children I'm done and they get divorced and she knew what this would do to her because it left her in poverty she ends up losing custody of her daughter and at this point in time again guys that is normal okay as sad as that is when a woman divorces her husband a lot of the times it doesn't work out for her obviously that the men wouldn't make sure of that so she got no money and her children get taken from her and she ends up moving to Paris to start fresh guys I can't not make a summer I turn pretty like I'm sorry like I have to mention the summer I turned pretty cuz like miss Bell miss Belly she moves to Paris to start to start fresh I feel like as they all do like I feel like all all hot girls like some shit goes wrong we cut our hair moved to Paris we we motherfucker so by 1903 she's aged 26 and she's essentially living on the streets she hopes to earn money in Paris and she doesn't she really tries a lot of different ways she's hustling y'all she's 26 she's literally she's alone again like no husband no children anymore and she has to earn her money it's some way and so she ends up returning to the Netherlands going back home and she is in deep poverty at this point in time and turns to one of the only occupants patients that she hasn't tried before. Prostitution. Y'all girls got to do what a girl's got to do and she had to make that living. And again, you'll see like this woman really uses this to her advantage later on in her life. But officially in 1904, she's completely cut off from her family and leaves for Paris for good. So she's like Paris, Netherlands gets a little bit of money working as a prostitute. And she goes back to Paris and she's like, bitch, I'm staying there. Okay, that's going to be my home. And when she lands in Paris, her glamorous story begins. So Margarita starts her first act as Lady Grisha McLaughlin. And she kind of begins to draw on her experiences in Southeast Asia and as her kind of as an exotic dancer. She begins to use this to her advantage. And basically her trademark at this time as Lady Grisha McLaughlin was she would take off these different colored robes seductively until she was pretty much nude, which for this point in time, y'all, that was a little scandal is. Okay, Margarita. All right, you shown them different robes, girl, take them off. And one of my favorite quotes that comes out of this point in time in her life is she says, I could never dance well. People came to see me because I was the first who dared to show myself naked to the public. Yes, you are Margarita. Clarcom. Okay, I just I love her sense of confidence and defiance to social norms like, like, fuck you, I'm nude. Okay, if you looked as hot as I did naked, you'd probably be up there too. Okay. And on March 13th, 1905, she has her major breakthrough. And this is when the star is born and her stage name, Mata Hari, comes into play. That stands for I of the day. Mm. Add some spife to it. She performs on the stage of the Musée Humette. Yeah. And the entire y'all, entire Persian elite is present there. You heard that right. One would think, "Hah! No, she didn't." And yes, she did, baby. And she was an instant sensation. And I quote, "That comes from a source, an instant sensation." She would get up there and perform multiple different types of dance moves. But many were very much compared to a dancing cobra or a snake. It was very seductive. And her, and I quote, "Flexible body sometimes follows the onjulations of the flames." It was a very exotic seductive style of dance. And she was really one of the first to fascinating people with this. Now, because of this unique dance style, she especially begins to draw the attention of the upper class male admirers. OK? That's where the money is. That was her target audience, y'all. And they begin to shower her with gifts. Now, we have records that Mata received 10,000 France. That's 37,000 euros in today's money. For one show. One show. This woman went from living on the streets of Paris, going back to the Netherlands to be a prostitute. And by the time she comes back to Paris, she's getting paid almost 40,000 euros for one show. She becomes so large that her name is then used for cigarettes, for l'caurs, and for so many other products. And by 1907, she's basically a short-lived millionaire. And she is loving that money. OK? Loving to rub that in her ex-husband's face. However, she spends that money as quickly as it comes in. OK? So she's not really the type to sit on that money and save it for later, y'all. She's indulging in her hard work, her hard earned money. But guys, the gifts don't stop there. She's getting all this money coming in. And then a French baker, Rousseau, rents a castle for her, a villa for her, a carriage, horses, and staff for her alone. Like alone. Like, guys, if anybody has the power to change a man's mind, it's Ms. Mata Hari, because a castle, a villa, a carriage, horses, and staff-- fuck. Like, does it get any better than that? Like, you go from answering a news ad for a man that is a broke alcoholic that wants to send you to some abandoned island to a French baker that is buying a castle for you. Another lover gives her the equivalent of 900,000 euros. In today's money. As a parting gift. Like, what? This man was trying to keep her stays so bad. He gave her 900,000 euros. Kendall says that she needs to find her man like that, because she's a sad as I am that she can't be on today's episode. But y'all, she's still getting her voice heard. She's here. I'm trying to-- I think, God, hi everyone. I miss you so much. I feel so silent. OK, you're done. [LAUGHS] Get-- get us a mic. Gonna go, I can dance. I can dance. Get me a man like that. Now, this girl was smart. OK, like they say in poker, get out while you're up. And by 1914, her dance career begins to fizzle out. Y'all, she's 40. She's like bordering 40 years old. This woman has been hustling for most of her entire life. And she really craved this actual financial stability. Like, yes, she's getting a lot of money. She's getting charred and gif. She's getting castles. But the one thing she had never had in her life was stability. And y'all, she craved that. And when the war breaks out, she's currently dancing in Berlin at that time. So she had left Paris. She's in Berlin. World War I breaks out, as we know, that starts with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand 1914. And with this, all theaters are shut down. She was suddenly an enemy alien. She's in Berlin. All of her accounts are frozen. Her jewelry and her costumes are completely confiscated. And she tried to travel back to France. And the Germans then confiscated her luggage and her bank accounts. And she was forced to return to her natural homeland of Holland. It's a key point here to note that the Germans confiscated her luggage and her bank accounts. OK? She ends up-- let's just say making them pay for their consequences later on. Now, she gets back to Holland. Again, guys, at this point, she's back to a lack of financial stability. She doesn't have her dance career. She doesn't even have the option of that. And she's just had to basically escape territory of war, go back home to Holland, and in classic Montagari fashion, she finds a wealthy Dutch baron. That's quick as that, y'all. And she resumes this affair that she had had with him earlier on in her life. And it's at this time she's within an affair. She's not married to this man, but he's providing for her. He's wealthy. He's giving her some security, but not enough for her to trust that she'll be OK on her own. And it's at this time that she is approached by Carl Kromer. Now, Carl Kromer was an honorary German consul living in Amsterdam. And he offers her 20,000 francs to spy for the Germans. 20,000 francs to what spy? Bitch, that's all you want me to do. Put the money in the bag. OK, let's move on. Listen, she wasn't chosen randomly. All right. This German consul and the German government knew that she had these very intimate, very close relationships with high ranking officials and nobility, y'all. She wasn't-- again, she wasn't this prostitute in the Netherlands. She was Miss Mata Hari. All right, she was with the best of the best, getting fucking castles and all. And so she agrees. She takes the 20,000 francs. And she later on actually says, going back to this whole luggage confiscation story, she only accepted the money as payback for the clothes and the jewelry that the Germans had stolen for her. So y'all, she played the game. She became so important and so vital to them with the information she was gaining that they even gave her a German code name, H-21. The one-a-one. I like it. She's a real spy. And let me just say, guys, she's a real fucking spy. If you go to the spy museum, you'll find her exhibit. You'll find her corset. And she's almost too good of a spy. But they were smart, and they were vigilant during the war. And the British and French officials began to be suspicious of her movements. She was a big name, guys. She was in newspapers. She was very well known. It wasn't like she was some secret exotic dancer. OK, she had a reputation. And they knew that she was right at the outbreak of the war in Germany, having relationships with military officers and with politicians. So, and suddenly, she bolts off. Yeah, they kind of knew. They're like, wait a minute, this lucrative exotic dancer. She's having relationships. with all the high-ranking military officials, the German officials, and now suddenly she's got an influx of money and she's moving around, but it's the war, so how is she allowed to move around? Holy shit, are we getting played? And yes, baby, they were, you know, they were, and they knew that, 'cause in the summer of 1916, she's approached by Georges-Lapeux, a French operative. Hmm, oh, French operative, I thought she was buying for the Germans. He offers her to spy for France. Yeah, and at this point, she's moved on from this wealthy Dutch duke, and she's now in a romance with a 21-year-old Russian army captain Vladimir D. Misloth. And she's like, you know what? I'm in a relationship, a little Romeo and Soltz, Gaelin Dull with you, but again, it's probably not gonna give me what I want. I got my 2000 francs from the Germans, honestly, that was to pay back what they stole from me. Now the French want me to? Oh, okay, fine, I'll literally do it, fine, I'll do it, oh my god. Yeah, and she takes the offer in order to make enough money to start a new life. Okay, this wasn't a game to her, this wasn't a joke, this was again, she was a fucking hustler. She was trying to find ways to make the fucking bank. Her main goal in this point in time, once she's given her mission by the French operatives, is to spy in Belgium, it's to spy in Belgium, and then to go east to Berlin, so she can see the crown prince Wilhelm of Germany. Guys, get this. Who was her former lover? No, I told you, we weren't lying when I said she was with the high ranking officials and nobility. Her former lover, crown prince Wilhelm of Germany, yeah, she does this, y'all, with ease. She's like, "All right, is that all you said all?" Okay, I'll go, I'll be with the prince, like, what do I get from this? And they tell her she would get one million francs. A million francs, okay. Y'all, that is a large sum of money. And again, for this woman who is hustling, says, say, fucking last, right? So she actually later admits this, and the way we have all this information is during her interrogation, she tells the British this. And they kind of think that the only reason that they sent her to Berlin to see Wilhelm is so they could expose her as a German agent. Yeah, yeah, guys, they didn't know. It wasn't like the type of double agent where like one knows that they're working for the other, no, no, true double agent. She's buying for the Germans, and she's buying for the French. She's playing both sides. And on her way to Berlin, she's on a ship. Her ship gets stopped. Y'all, the British were fucking onto her. The British are coming, the British are coming, mod a run. But the blessed part about this is they stop her, they get on board, and they say, there she is, Clara Benedict. Huh? She's like, oh, shit, they caught me, Clara Benedict. That ain't me. She's like, what? Hi, Margarita Zell. Yeah. Sorry, is there a confusion here? Yeah, they fully stop the ship, thinking she's a different female spy, Clara Benedict's, and she's not. Like, she's not. But regardless, she does not make it to Berlin. So they'd stop the ship, they, they wrongly confiscate the wrong person, they realize it's the wrong lady. And they let her go. Now, somewhere along the line in her work as a double agent, she has another affair with German major Arnold Kail. And he sends messages back to Berlin referencing this age 21. Okay, her agent code name. We kind of think he framed her on purpose, because this whole agent, age 21 thing, starts to get her exposed. And then, the message back to Berlin, pretty much framed her on purpose from what we think. Because he used a code that the allies already knew. They had already caught on to age 21. This man was informed of that. He could have used a different code name, could have made some shit up. But no, he refers to the one agent that they've had an ion. They've been waiting to hear that code name. The second they hear it, the French intercept, that message. They charge her with espionage. She's pretty much given away. She's fucked over. Okay, by this guy she's having an affair with. Really? Really dude? Like, you got a woman that people bought fucking castles for. And you're gonna, wow, no, that's fine. No, that's actually fine. That's totally fine. Because regardless, the French government was under intense pressure to find spies. Okay, they arrested over 500 people at this point in time looking for spies. They knew Germany had employed a lot of spies. As had they, right? But they're thinking like, okay, wait, she's our spy. Holy shit. We had this code name. The code name we gave her and they're using it. Oh my god. She played us all. And they needed a win. Okay, that is a big portion of this case. We have a massive debate that really pushes to say that the only reason that the French interrogated her and looked into everything and framed her as the spy is so they could have some win. So they could have some backing to say, hey, look, we caught a spy. So come blue. We got one. Yes, we did it. Hooray. And they would eventually execute in this point in time. They acute, they arrested over 500 people and they execute 300 of them for espionage. Yeah, they needed something. You can tell they were desperate and they really, they needed to show some short, some form of strength and say, hey, look, hey, look, we got your spies all 300 of them. Yeah. But back to Mata Hari, she's interrogated 17 times. And in each of these 17 interrogations, she declares her innocence. Some quotes from these interrogations, she says, a court as an I admit, a spy never. She claims, I never considered myself a German agent with a number because I never did anything for them. In July of 1917, her espionage trial begins and the prosecution blames her for thousands of allied deaths. And they said that since she had all of these multiple affairs, she must have been gathering information. Dare a woman have multiple love interests like what? Again, I think that these members just mad that they couldn't get her to. Eriel, one of the prosecutors, Andre Mornay says, the evil that this woman has done is unbelievable. This is perhaps the greatest woman's spy of the century. And we got to give it to her. I mean, all he wasn't lying. He wasn't lying. But neither was she. She's found guilty within less than an hour of this trial. And at the end of it, she sentenced to death. It's that quick. They gave her no chance. They didn't listen to a fucking word, she said. All it took us from one man to call her evil, call her the greatest woman's spy of the century. And she's lined up on a field in the outskirts of Paris on October 15th, 1917. She's lined in front of a firing squad of 12 French soldiers. Now, I think one of the most iconic parts of her story is her continued refusal of weakness. She declared herself innocent. She told her truth. She did what she had to fucking do. And when the moment comes and they offer her her blindfold. So she doesn't have to watch these 12 French soldiers execute her. She looks at them, refuses the blindfold, and blows a kiss to the troops. Now, we know this because we have witnesses for this. There were two nuns there, sister Leonide and sister Marie. Her defense lawyer was there, and her former lover and her defense, one of them, a manate and no word, Clunette. And also a peer, Buchanan. Now, I don't want to go into details because this is the death of an icon. But again, she claims her innocence to the very end. They tie a rope around her waist. They tie her to a pole. She refuses her blindfold. She blows a final fuck you kiss to the troops. And she's executed. October 15th, 1917. Now, again, she didn't have family to come and claim the body. So it was donated to the University of Paris Medical School. Her head was then embalmed at the Museum of Anatomy in Paris. And in the year 2000, it was actually discovered it had disappeared from the museum. Got a little, another little Lou Feissant around. Right? Be real, be real. We know what you did. You stole my heart. Don't lie to us. But the big debate of her entire life ends up being was she guilty. And in 1930 Germany answers the question by exempting her from her crimes. Now she's already she's already been executed at this point but for her innocence they unseal French files from in 2017 guys recently they unseal French files and they reveal that she was only a freelance spy for the French and she only spied for them once. Okay she did accept money from the Germans but only gave them gossip to sort of prime them for future relationships to get info for the French. So the ones that executed her were actually the ones that she was helping and and the Germans admit that they didn't object to her trial or to her execution because they also felt betrayed by her. She had given them some insider information. She was technically lightly working with the French as a freelance spy who spied for them once, one time. And then in 1999 British intelligence files were unsealed that showed that the British officials interrogated Monta-Harrie in 1915 and 1916 and they found no evidence that zero-zilch evidence of espionage. None. Then in 2001 the Monta-Harrie Foundation and the Dutch town of Leuwarden requested a new trial and a pardon from the French Ministry of Justice. And she got it. She was innocent but this woman played everybody and in turn they played her. They set her up as a scapegoat so they could say hey look we caught us by we caught the most infamous of them all a ghastly woman. She's had all these affairs and she's tricked all these men with all her seduction and her dances and her affairs and we got her but they were fucking wrong. This woman did what she needed to do to survive. She made them Germans pay her the fuck back for the stuff that they had stole. She did spy for the French but once and this was as a freelance spy. Nothing near espionage. And her trials set the precedent for how later female spies would be treated. Now these portrayals continued on. She was portrayed as a man-eater and international woman a savage all of that. In the post-war press you know from the British French German and the Spanish press female agents were viewed as women of little virtue no matter how vital their role was. So the female spies that were actually gaining half the information by getting in bed with desperate as men got little credit to and up until 1964 when a biographer gained access partial access to French military files she had been known up into that point as the greatest woman spy of the century. Her international travel her citizenship of a neutral country her ability to speak multiple languages clearly made the allied leaders uncomfortable. As a woman who had social and political status that she needed to worry about she was viewed as more dangerous because she had more stake in the war. I mean yes she was in a neutral country but nonetheless she had a part to play in the war and that would make her even more suspected of being a spy. So with all that said to wrap up our tenth episode for the icon that was Mata Hari she may have been called the greatest woman spy in history and it was all of these things that raised their suspicion to think that she was a spy but in reality she was innocent her truth was real and the reality was she was a hot sexy hustling badass woman that the world of that time couldn't accept and that is the reason we chose her for our tenth official episode here at Spilt. Mata Hari's legacy has outlived her and y'all in my opinion even though she didn't do it she's still one of the greatest female spies of this century. So even though I don't have my co-host here to do the dinner party takeaway I'm gonna do mine and I honestly think my dinner party takeaway for for this episode is the fact that in her final moments she still remained that baddie on the stage and blew a kiss to the 12 French soldiers lining up to execute her even though it's a sad ending I still feel like she really went out with a bang no pun intended and stayed true to her identity and her innocence to which they later revealed was true. So tonight we raise a glass to Mata Hari and to the tenth episode of Spilt. Thank you guys for listening to today's episode per usual we post every other Tuesday and we will see you then. Bye! Thank you so much for listening Spilt is produced with the help of our team Rachel Stout, Jacob Ragnar and Saraya Fofana.