69: Mata Hari (Part II)
Kathryn (00:10)
Hello everyone. Welcome back to I Scream You Scream. We are your weekly scoop of the most chilling histories, mysteries and paranormal perplexities. My name is Kathryn
Gina (00:22)
I'm Gina.
Kathryn (00:24)
And we're just going to skip right ahead because this is a special part two episode. I also have no ice cream because I sucked mine down already.
But before we jump into the story, do you have anything you wanna go over first?
Gina (00:41)
do, because it's almost International Women's Day. So happy almost International Women's Day. It's on Sunday when this comes out.
Kathryn (00:48)
Yay!
We love it. What a topic to be discussing in the midst of International Women's Day.
Gina (00:54)
I
I know, I felt like I had to call it out.
Kathryn (00:59)
Yeah, I know
you have to because this is the energy that International Women's Day has in my head is this story. Do you know what I mean? You know what else this story is giving me? Lilith energy.
Gina (01:09)
I love that. And I agree.
100%. Oh my God. I forgot to tell you, I'm going to a Lilith workshop in like two weeks.
Kathryn (01:18)
Right? Yeah.
I know, I saw
it on your calendar and I lost my fucking mind. I took a screenshot of the calendar and I was gonna send it to you, but it was late at night and I was like, I'll talk to her about it tomorrow. This was like a week ago and I just forgot. Do you wanna talk about it now or do you wanna save it? Because I really wanna, when is it?
Gina (01:40)
Well, I want to talk about it, but
I have no idea, Kathryn. I don't know when it is, I don't know where it is, I barely know what we're going to be talking about. I'm not prepared to talk.
Kathryn (01:52)
did hear about it? Can I at least know that? Are you sure you're going?
Gina (01:54)
Yes, okay, okay.
Yes. I am sure I'm going it's through there's this ⁓ kind of esoteric which whichy shop near me called anathema and They do a lot of they've started doing a lot of really cool workshops for like people at various stages of their witch journey and practice whatever And so one of them is about Lilith. They also do classes on like
spell work and like the use of herbs and spells and just all sorts of really cool things. So I'll put a link to their Instagram page in the show notes, because that's, think where they're most active, but yeah, they are awesome.
Kathryn (02:29)
Ooh, I love that.
Cool. Yes.
Gina (02:33)
Okay, so I think I am ready to present
you with part two of this episode. I should have prepared a brief recap, and I didn't. So I'm gonna do this off the top of my head. Sorry in advance. So in part one of the Hari story, we...
Talked about Mata Hari. Well, we talked about her early life her childhood how she came to be married and then divorced and then how she moved to Paris ⁓ To find her fame and fortune and she absolutely did she became a world famous exotic dancer and now courtesan and we ended the episode When she had just performed the last show of her dancing career She was at her home in the Netherlands when she got a knock on the door from a German intelligence officer
Asking her to become a spy for Germany and spy on France. I Think that's that's about covers it. I could have made that whole episode five seconds ⁓ I'll never do it again. I'm so sorry Okay. Yes, so this German officer just offered her 20,000 francs to become a spy for Germany and Mata Hari is immediately like mmm. That is not enough money
Kathryn (03:27)
Excellent. Yep.
I was gonna say, why did we do two parts?
Gina (03:49)
Because this man was asking her to literally risk her life for the equivalent of what she would have gotten in two nights of work back when she was a dancer, because she charged 10,000 francs per show. So she was like, all right, the paycheck's not really good. But she also figured, hey, Germany did take my expensive fur coats away when I was in Berlin. So she accepted the money as like a, yeah, sure, I'll spy for you, dude, kind of thing.
Kathryn (03:57)
Yeah.
Gina (04:17)
but she had no actual intention of doing so. She just viewed it as recompense for something that they had taken from her. The man also gave her three pots of invisible ink that she could use to send information back to German intelligence, like writing secret coded letters and stuff, very, very cool spy shit. And as soon as he left, she threw those pots of invisible ink into a river. Because for her, this was just...
Kathryn (04:37)
Yeah.
Okay.
Gina (04:46)
another instance of letting a man pay her to pretend to be someone that she wasn't. Like she didn't see this as asserting her loyalty, she didn't see this as a commitment, she didn't even consider herself a spy. It was just an easy paycheck for her, so she took it. And that was the end of the story.
has this money, takes it, moves back to Paris, where her glamorous lifestyle starts up again. And this time while she's living in Paris, she fell in love with a young Russian captain named Vadim Maslov. And apparently this was the great love affair of Mata Hari's life. She would later claim that Vadim was the only man she ever truly loved and that the feeling was mutual.
It was like after all of these years and all of these countless lovers, she had finally found someone who made her feel ready to settle down again and get married again. So when Vadim was sent back to the Western Front in 1916, she obviously really, really struggled with it. And when she got news that he had been injured, in fact, he had lost an eye, she was inconsolable. Like it's exactly what your face just did. It's like that blind...
frenzy panic that you go into when someone that you love is hurt. So she immediately started looking for ways to go to the front and be with him. But it wasn't really that easy because although Mata Hari was the citizen of a neutral country and she should have been allowed to travel wherever she wanted to really within Europe, she would be entering a military zone. you needed special permission to do that. So she filed a request.
Kathryn (06:03)
Yeah.
Gina (06:31)
and she was told to come to the immigration office in Paris. And that same office also happened to be the headquarters of French intelligence. she got to the building, assuming she would be sitting down with some random immigration officer, but instead she wound up in the office of Georges Ledoux, who was the head of French intelligence.
And he had intentionally set it up this way. Like he invited her to the building. He got her into his office. It was all part of his plan because he suspected her of being a spy for Germany for all of the reasons that we talked about in part one. Like she traveled a whole lot. ⁓ She had money, which meant she was pretty autonomous for a woman. She also had access to high ranking officials from multiple countries who were involved in the conflict, yada, yada, yada. All of this raised red flags for him.
But in their first conversation, he didn't want to give up the game too early and just like accuse her of being a spy right away or anything. For right now, he just wanted to get a sense of her personality and just like, suss her out a little bit. So they chatted for a while, both attempting to charm the other one, both assuming they had succeeded. And he approved her travel documents and she went to go visit Vadim.
Later on, when she came back from her visit, George Ledoux, the same guy, asked for another meeting with her. And this time, he told her straight up, I want you to become a spy for France. Now you might be asking, Gina, why would this guy, who suspects Mata Hari of spying for Germany, want to recruit her as a spy for France? And we don't exactly know. There are kind of two theories about it. The first is that he wanted to convert her into a double agent. Simple as that.
The second is that he wanted to set her up. And he thought that by trying to get her to play both sides, she would eventually make a mistake because he wasn't supposed to know that she had anything to do with Germany. So that he could get her to mess up in some way, to slip up somehow, and then they would be able to point to something and say, aha, I knew you were a German spy. You said you were French all along, but you're not, you're a German spy, blah, blah. Either way.
No matter what, it was in his best interest to offer her this whole French spy gig because it let him keep an eye on her. Like the keep your friends close, keep your enemies closer type thing. But of course, Mata Hari didn't know any of this. All she knew is that yet another guy wanted her to spy for him, which is wild. Like imagine having somebody offers to become a covert operative within like a year. That's insane.
Kathryn (09:13)
Yeah.
I feel like that's your dream.
Gina (09:20)
I'd be a horrible spy, but I would love to try.
Kathryn (09:23)
we know for a fact that you would not be a horrible spy. We've literally done it before. Yeah. You would be an excellent spy. I would be a horrible spy. You're thinking of me. I would hate, this is my nightmare. ⁓
Gina (09:29)
yeah, because I, yeah. You're right, we have, I forgot about that.
But you could be, you're a good coordinator
though. You could be the guy at the desk, you know, the guy with the screen.
Kathryn (09:45)
I would, I would be a good,
yeah, I'd be a good war secretary.
Gina (09:49)
You'd be a great war secretary. You know, we still have to pick official job titles for the podcast. You could be War Secretary Kathryn.
Kathryn (09:52)
Mm-hmm.
I could. could. I still have to learn Morse code. That's on my list for this year.
Gina (10:00)
And I...
yeah, we have to learn Morse code. I wonder if there's like an online class you can take with a partner who's not with you.
Kathryn (10:06)
Yeah.
That reminds me, I accidentally signed up for Japanese language lessons at my library. That's a whole other story. My point, the reason I bring that up is I'm sure there's like the library has something on that. You have all kinds of shit.
Gina (10:21)
What, recently?
Okay.
We'll look into it, we'll look into it. ⁓ Anyway, yes, so I don't know if Mata Hari knew Morse code, but either way, she had this job offer of being a French spy. George told her that she would have a really specific mission to kick things off, which was to go to Germany, send back any information she could find, but specifically seduce the crown prince and extract military secrets from him to pass along to...
I love it so much. I love it so much. All Mata Hari had to do was name her price. And to Mata Hari, again, this was just another way to make money. Like her life was measured in cycles of reinventing herself. First as a teacher, then as a socialite, then a dancer, then a courtesan. So what was reinventing herself one more time to be a spy? Which caused her to say she would do it.
Kathryn (11:02)
Yeah. ⁓
Gina (11:28)
for 1 million francs. It was a wild amount of money, especially back then. And Mata Hari wasn't super sure if this dude would agree to it, but he did.
Kathryn (11:41)
Wild.
Gina (11:42)
A million Frankeroonies for ol' Mata Hari over here. was wild. But he said that she wouldn't get paid until her mission was complete. So she left the office and she got to work.
problem was she was not a very good spy. She did start sending information to France about anything she could find in Germany, but she did this through, a lot of the times it was letters that were not written in code that like just anyone could intercept and read. She also sent telegraphs, like very blatant, open telegraphs with privileged information on them. She would call
Kathryn (12:16)
Okay.
Gina (12:24)
George, this French guy, directly at his office all of the time and tried to speak openly about things over the phone. And a lot of times, like, the information that she provided to them wasn't super useful. It would be like gossip or who's sleeping with who, not, seduced General So-and-so and he told me about a new tank that Germany's building or something.
And we don't really know why she was so bad at spying because she was in the perfect position to be able to do it really well. So some people say that she was just naive and didn't understand that she wasn't supposed to do these things. Others say that she wasn't properly trained on what types of information to look for. Others say that she was a bad French spy intentionally because she was already spying for Germany. So she didn't want to do a good job at spying.
France. I lean more towards she wasn't properly trained for the job that you gave her personally, but no one knows for sure.
Kathryn (13:24)
Yeah.
feel like it could be any of them.
Gina (13:27)
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (13:28)
I always lead toward ⁓ improper training. I always start my blame at the top. Yeah.
Gina (13:36)
Me too. Listen, you can train
for hard skills. If they have the soft skills, they're a 10 out 10 candidate and she had the soft skills. Yeah. No matter what, she became a thorn in the side of French intelligence very, very quickly, which I also kind of love. But more than that, her mission just didn't go very well. Later that same year, her travels somehow left her stranded in Spain with no easy or clear way to get out.
Kathryn (13:42)
Yes, she had the soft skills.
Gina (14:05)
So once again, she calls George at his office, but he didn't answer. And in fact, no one in French intelligence was answering her. It was radio silence, which left her with no option but to take matters into her own hands. She found out that a German major named Arnold Kalle, I think that's how you say it, she found out that he was in the area. So she sought him out, seduced him as she was so good at doing,
And during the kind of pillow talk part, she tried to get some information out of him that she could give to France with the thought being, like, if I can get some really juicy info to pass back to French intelligence, they will be forced to respond to me and they'll be able to get me out of Spain. And to convince this German guy that she seduced that she was like actually trustworthy and that he could tell her these things.
She told him, like, hey, it's all right. I'm like secretly a German spy. Here's some information I can give you about France. We're all friends here. And she proceeded to give him the kind of information that like he might think seemed useful on the outside, but wasn't actually useful. So stuff that was like just a little bit untrue or just a little too outdated to actually be useful or just too vague to really point or lead to anything. But he seemed to fall for it.
because he started giving her some information about Germany that she thought, ⁓ France is gonna like this stuff. So their tryst ended, they went their separate ways, and when she was alone again, Mata Hari wrote down everything that this German guy had said, and she sent it to French intelligence using the hotel's postal service, which again, not excellent spycraft here. But she waited, and she waited, and still, French intelligence wouldn't respond to her.
Like no one, all of her contacts were completely ignoring her. And she started to get the feeling that something was very, very wrong. And she was correct. Because you see, hotel staff had intercepted the letter that she wrote to French intelligence and it made its way back to the German guy she had seduced.
Kathryn (16:13)
No.
Gina (16:20)
Big, big, no, yeah. And when he read it, he of course discovered that she was in fact not a spy for Germany, as she had said, but was a double agent who spied for France. So while Mata Hari was waiting in vain for a response that would never come, the German major started sending these telegrams back to German intelligence, talking about how lovely and helpful one of their spies was being.
I'll explain why in a second. And he started describing Mata Hari not by name, but in detail nonetheless, like describing her movements. He even name dropped the name of her maid, like to the point where anyone with a brain cell who was able to read this encoded message would know that he was talking about Mata Hari. And who should intercept these telegrams? But France. Like I said, they were encoded, but they had been written in a code that the German guy
knew that France had cracked. So he wanted these telegrams to get intercepted. This was his way of saying to France, hey, your spy is actually working for us. Because he knew, Germany knew, that it would get Mata Hari in trouble with France and take her off of the playing field. They set her up. Like in the same way that George the French guy tried to set her up, the Germans set her up too. Did the same thing.
Kathryn (17:42)
This is like breaking my brain already. This feels very like... This is very...
Gina (17:45)
I know.
Kathryn (17:50)
This is just simply why I would be a bad spy. like can't keep this kind of so stuff. Like the, you know, so and so's ratting on so and so and like, you know, I don't know. It's just all too much. It would be too much pressure to be a spy.
Gina (18:01)
I know.
It's, yeah, I think I would probably crack to be honest. But even this part, like there's so many different versions of, the German guy knew the entire time and like saw through her that she was like actually a spy for France or like actually Mata Hari was passing along really useful information to him and he was writing back to Germany, like genuinely praising one of the spies that they had and France just happened to catch it. So we still don't know.
Kathryn (18:25)
Mm-hmm.
Gina (18:32)
if either side really, truly 100 % set her up, but based on the information I found.
Kathryn (18:33)
Yeah.
feel like that's part of it. Like being a spy, like you can't trust anyone. Even yourself. It's just too much.
Gina (18:45)
Yeah.
just too much.
Kathryn (18:51)
I just can't, I can't do it. ⁓
Gina (18:54)
The entire time I was researching this I was like, I'll stick with my little emails, my little button pushing. That's what I'll do. It'll be fine. ⁓ Yeah. Okay. So.
When Mata Hari was eventually able to return to Paris, it did all come crashing down around her. When she arrived, French intelligence was waiting for her and she was arrested on February 13th, 1917 and brought to Saint-Lazare prison, I think is how you say it. And while she was there, she was subjected to a series of interrogations, which were not exactly pleasant experiences.
and she was relentlessly grilled about her travel patterns, the intimate relationships she had had with German officers, and any affiliation that she might have had with German intelligence. And over and over again, she asserted her innocence. We don't know exactly how many of these sessions she endured, but we think it was between 10 and 17, which is, like, that's a very high number. She held out for a long time.
Kathryn (20:05)
It's high and also specific.
Gina (20:08)
Yeah.
17.
Kathryn (20:11)
17. That's wild.
Gina (20:14)
Yeah, and to be fair, it's not like most people say, oh, it's between 10 and 17. It's like some of the sources I found said 10, some said 17, and then there were some that were kind of in the middle. So that's like the high and low range. Yeah, and by the end of it, regardless of how many of these sessions she had to sit through, she was just done with it. She'd had enough with it. So she came clean about accepting the 20,000 from the Germans. And yes, the telegram that the German major had sent
Kathryn (20:24)
Somewhere in the middle, yeah. Okay.
wild.
Gina (20:43)
had been about her because he didn't use her name in it, but he used her like super secret spy code name, which was H 21. And so she was like, yes, I am H 21. And she also said that in her defense, she had only ever given Germany information that she knew was outdated or useless as a means of getting information in return from them. But it didn't matter because at the time France
Honestly was not interested in the truth at all. The war wasn't going well for them by this point They had lost thousands and thousands and thousands of soldiers and they were dealing with mutinies so bad that they are now referred to literally as the great mutinies and All yeah, I know. Yeah, and all of this meant that France was just gasping for air under the weight of this war So they were looking for a ⁓ loud
Kathryn (21:30)
Damn.
Gina (21:40)
public success to distract from all of the bad stuff. And blaming it on one person, let alone a woman with a quote, sinful history, was so very tempting. So after spending months in prison, she was officially charged with being an enemy spy and summoned to appear in military court. And the fact that it was military court does make a difference here because normal court, civilian court,
is designed to decide whether someone is guilty or innocent as fairly as possible. Whereas military court, especially in World War I France, was designed to preserve discipline and order as quickly as possible. So you might be able to see where this is going. Kind of some misaligned priorities here. Like the military court here existed to serve the war, not to serve justice.
Kathryn (22:23)
Mm.
Yeah.
Gina (22:34)
So for example, in 1917 France, you had no right to appeal a death sentence from military court. And the people sitting in the judge's seat were military leaders, not trained legal professionals. And even maintaining contact with the enemy pretty much made you guilty. So this is the system in which Mata Hari was brought to trial. Not exactly fair.
Kathryn (22:59)
fucked up.
Gina (23:00)
It is fucked up. It's real rude. It's real mean.
Kathryn (23:02)
Yeah.
Gina (23:05)
The trial itself took place over two days in front of a panel of seven judges, judges quote unquote, and right away the prosecution started attacking her character. They brought up her falsified backstory from when she was a dancer and painted her as a liar. They attacked her history as a courtesan, the fact that she was a divorcee and an independent woman. They cast her
Kathryn (23:12)
Yeah.
Gina (23:33)
as the antithesis of what a quote, good woman should be, despite the fact that these were the same types of men who had been drooling over her just years earlier. Like the thing that made her a hero, yeah, now, yeah.
Kathryn (23:43)
That's what I... Yeah.
Yeah. Like, she is selling herself to all of these men. Well, hello, who the fuck is quote buying her? You know what I mean? Like, come on.
Gina (23:57)
Right.
Yes, I know, I know. There was this one quote that I thought about a lot ⁓ that I read about Mata Hari and it was like, what was it? It was talking about the kind of close to the beginning of her career when she was like moving to Paris and she, but she didn't know she was going to move to Paris yet and she was trying to figure out how she was going to make money to get Louise. And one of the quotes was like, she had to make the choice that countless women have made between poverty and perdition.
Kathryn (24:20)
Mm-hmm.
Gina (24:30)
And that has just been a theme the entire time. Like she couldn't just be a successful woman who monetized the things that would make her money.
Kathryn (24:32)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Gina (24:43)
Yeah. Period.
Kathryn (24:44)
period. Like, yes, that's
like, that's pretty much especially the whole thing about. ⁓ Well, this is kind of an aside, but also to use like the divorce against her too. It's like, do you have any idea how difficult it was for a woman to get a divorce? Like. He had just as much to do with that that she did, you know what I mean? There's all these little things that are like, OK.
Gina (24:58)
I know.
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (25:14)
Yes, this happened and she did do this, but you guys zoom out a little bit because it's not like she was the one calling the shots.
Gina (25:22)
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (25:22)
So do-
Gina (25:23)
Yeah,
and because it was military court, like yes, that should have been brought up, but because it was military court, her defense didn't have the, they weren't allowed to cross examine witnesses, like either their witnesses or ⁓ witnesses from the other side. Like there was nothing she could do except like sit there and just listen while these assholes said this horrible shit about her. They did actually, yeah, it was abominable. It was fucking awful.
Kathryn (25:30)
Yeah.
Fuck.
Man, I don't like military court.
Gina (25:51)
Me neither. Yuck!
Kathryn (25:52)
I don't like it.
Gina (25:58)
The military court blows.
Kathryn (26:01)
It
sucks.
Gina (26:04)
It does. They did wind up eventually talking about things that were slightly relevant, though. Like the fact that she had it. Like, yes, gold star, gold star for the prosecution here. Right, yeah. Like they did bring up the fact that she had admitted to accepting money from Germany, which like did not look great for her. And she did, she also owned up to it in court. Like she reaffirmed that yes, she took this money.
Kathryn (26:12)
⁓ great.
Plus.
Relevant, yeah.
Gina (26:29)
but she clarified that she had only taken the money because German officials had confiscated those fur coats that were expensive. So she viewed it as recompense and she didn't actually have any intention of being a German spy. So that's why I flagged it when I mentioned the fur coats earlier, because it comes all the way back around.
Kathryn (26:30)
Mm-hmm.
⁓
Yeah.
Man, but see, even that I'm still upset because I thought you were gonna say she got them back.
Gina (26:53)
Well, no, but she did have a lover who gave her a castle, so swings and roundabouts. ⁓
Kathryn (26:58)
Well, you win some, lose some, I guess.
Gina (27:03)
Choosers can't be choosers, you know?
Kathryn (27:07)
as they say.
Gina (27:09)
as they say. But still, the prosecution pressed on, raising questions about her suspicious travel patterns, her intimate relationships with high-ranking Germans again, and blah, blah, blah, blah. And even outside of the courtroom, the prosecution also made sure that the press was spewing vitriolic bullshit about her to sway public opinion against her, because she had been a
beloved entertainer. I don't know if she was a household name, but close enough, people really loved Mata Hari. And so they went on this rampage to try and swing people in the opposite direction. So they worked with the press to paint Mata Hari as like this really vitally important spy whose actions led to the deaths of like 20,000 French soldiers, which was a complete and total fabrication. In reality,
She was a teeny tiny little fish in a very big intelligence community pond. She had nothing to do with France's military failures, and she wasn't even that good of a spy.
Kathryn (28:11)
That's what I think the biggest shock in this episode is based on, because I have said this, I do not know this story, but I have heard her name. Like she is an infamous figure. I was not expecting you to say she was a bad spy because of how well known she is.
This is just reminding me of so many things that I don't even want to bring. I don't want to fall down all these rabbit holes. But it's like, man, if your national security and the safety of all of your soldiers is dependent on one singular woman, like you got other issues going on than just blaming it on one single bad spy, that's my biggest takeaway from this.
Gina (28:43)
Mm-hmm.
huh. huh.
And a big reason why, because she has, a lot of people think of her as like the mother of femme fatales, or at least the archetype of like, seductress female spy.
Kathryn (29:13)
Yeah, that's the only reason
I know her. Yeah, it's like I've seen her face and name when looking into stuff like this previously. I just never knew what her actual story is, but that is the vibe. Like she definitely seems like the one, you know?
Gina (29:22)
Mm-hmm.
100%. And that's in large part because it all really kicked off with like the prosecution trying to make her out to be this kind of person. know, spoiler, eventually she does die. And after her death, that narrative continued and built like grew and grew and grew and kind of became the archetype that we know today. Like these days people are more, you know, I'll get into it. Sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's go back to the trial.
Kathryn (29:38)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
I know, I do that all the time too.
It's, yeah, it's okay. We'll get there, we'll get there.
Gina (30:00)
We'll get there, we'll get there, stick with me, we'll get there.
So in my opinion, the biggest gut punch of the trial was when Vadim, her lover, the guy who had lost his eye, refused to testify for her. And he was the entire reason that she agreed to spy for France to begin with.
Kathryn (30:17)
Noooo
Gina (30:24)
so that she could be with him when he was hurt and scared and he betrayed her when she needed him most, when her life was literally on the line.
Kathryn (30:34)
That makes me sick.
Gina (30:35)
Me too. Fuck Vadim. And Rudolph.
Kathryn (30:39)
Fuck Vadim.
Gina (30:40)
And pretty much all the men in this story, to be honest, except for the castle guy.
Kathryn (30:42)
was literally just gonna say, can we say that? Who's a, name
one good man, name one.
Gina (30:47)
Wait, in this episode? Okay.
Kathryn (30:48)
No, I meant in the-
Man, you're gonna really make me say Phil. I'm not talking about them.
Yes.
Gina (30:59)
Yeah,
the castle guy seemed cool, I guess.
I'm sure her brothers were nice, didn't know much about her brothers.
Kathryn (31:05)
I was gonna say I forgot she had brothers.
Gina (31:07)
Yeah, me too. They're not really talked about a whole lot.
Kathryn (31:10)
Yeah, because they didn't come to her defense or help her out ever, because they suck.
Gina (31:12)
No. Because they're
all evil. So because Vadim refused to testify for her and for a myriad of other reasons, she was left all but defenseless during this trial. So there was literally nothing she could do except listen as they declared her guilty and sentenced her to death. Despite the fact that over this two-day trial,
No one had presented absolutely any concrete evidence that Mata Hari was guilty of spying for Germany. No one.
Sucks. I know.
Kathryn (31:50)
Yeah, no
comment. All of my previous comments stand.
Gina (31:54)
Yeah, agreed. Mata Hari was taken back to her cell and three months later, on October 15th, 1917, she was brought to that firing range. But Mata Hari refused to be afraid. There is this story that while she was waiting in death row, she was assigned a nun to watch over her and her cellmates.
And I think it was the nun who got really emotional on the day of Mata Hari's ⁓ execution. And Mata Hari, the story goes, said to her, do not be afraid. I know how to die without weakness. And that is so badass.
Kathryn (32:32)
my god, that
is so cool. Man, I wish I knew how to die without weakness. That's so cool.
Gina (32:44)
I you could. To spite someone, you definitely could. I mean, don't, but you could.
Kathryn (32:46)
Someday.
Yeah, I just like, I have to like work toward that. I definitely would be a sad little baby if I died now. Yeah, that's my goal. That's so cool.
Gina (32:58)
You got your whole life to work towards it, ha ha.
Yep, so she put on her best clothes, she made up her face, and she held her head high as they murdered her at the age of 41. It's rumored that one soldier who witnessed this said, quote, by God, the lady knows how to die.
Kathryn (33:25)
What the F? Wow. I like hate that that's like such a cool compliment. Like what a weird thing to say, but I'm like, yeah, like definitely a weird thing to say. I don't want to be out here like, wow, I hope someone says that to me. That's a weird thing to say, but like it definitely paints a picture of who she is. I'm imagining like, I'm trying to think of a story we've done or someone we've referenced before, just someone very like.
Gina (33:26)
Mm-hmm.
It's so cool. Yeah, screw the soldier, but.
You
Kathryn (33:56)
Hold your head up high while shitty things are happening.
Gina (33:59)
Lavidia Fisher?
Kathryn (34:01)
Yeah. Yes. Yeah, she was badass.
Gina (34:04)
She was badass. Well,
in the stories.
Kathryn (34:08)
Yeah. Yeah, similar vibe. But even she, like she didn't want to die. Not that, that Mata Hari wanted to die, but there was definitely some fight. You know what I mean?
Gina (34:09)
think. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. But I was, yeah,
I was thinking like because of the wedding dress, like the make a statement with your death kind of thing.
Kathryn (34:21)
Yeah, yes, yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, okay, yes. I just love ⁓ a woman who is dealing with the repercussions of men being stupid and needing a scapegoat and she's not.
it sound so bad, but like I would throw a fit over that. I would be whining and kicking and screaming and being like obnoxious until the end. I do appreciate when a woman can just hold her head high and be like, they'll get theirs. Like people will know my story. I wouldn't do that. I'd be like crying and whining about it. All reactions are valid, but I do, I love a hold your head high type.
Gina (34:58)
It is admirable.
Kathryn (35:08)
story.
Gina (35:09)
Because
you know that that's not giving them what they want. And goddamn, is it good to die refusing your executioners what they want?
Kathryn (35:12)
Yes, exactly.
You're not going to give them the satisfaction of being scared. That's exactly it. Yes. Thank you for, I was like, I'm trying to say more here. I sound like a little baby, like talking about this, but like.
Gina (35:20)
Yeah. Yes.
do the same, I would kick and scream, but I love the idea of not.
Kathryn (35:30)
Yeah, I would very much give them what
they wanted. Yeah, yeah, I do appreciate that. Like, we're just going to wait it out and someday my story will be told and people will know. I like that vibe.
Gina (35:35)
Yes.
I hope it's a good
story. I hope it's like the first half of Mata Hari's story, but without any of the bad stuff that happens in there. I just want you to move to Paris and become rich. That's the bit that I want.
All right, well we'll get to work on that, but.
Kathryn (35:56)
I was gonna say, we'll talk about this off camera.
Gina (36:02)
So yes, Mata Hari was executed and after her death, the same newspapers who had celebrated her talents just a short while ago instead celebrated her death, positioning it as an unmasking of an evil temptress and spy. And this part's really, really heartbreaking, so warning. Her daughter apparently found out about her mother's death from a newspaper article.
Kathryn (36:29)
No!
Gina (36:31)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Kathryn (36:35)
That sucks.
Gina (36:36)
Yeah, and I will give just a little update on Louise and warning this is also pretty sad. At the time that her mother was executed, she was preparing to move to the Dutch East Indies to become a teacher. But right as she was about to leave, she suddenly died after suffering a brain hemorrhage.
I know, I'm sorry, it's a lot.
Kathryn (36:57)
That note what I was hoping for.
Gina (36:59)
No, I know. I'm sorry. It sure does.
Kathryn (37:01)
Man, that sucks. I was going
to ask if the daughter, did they like stay in touch or anything like that? Like did she?
Gina (37:09)
I don't know.
I imagine they did. I don't know that for a fact. I would be shocked if they didn't.
Kathryn (37:14)
Well, that's why I asked because I would be shocked if she stopped contact, but I don't. I wonder if it was like...
reciprocated because if you're young and like who knows what that bitch ass father was telling this little girl about her mother. Do you know what I'm saying? Like I wonder if she got letters from Mata Hari whether she sent them or not, you know. Let's say in our narrative they were in touch and everything was okay.
Gina (37:34)
That's true. Yeah.
Yeah, I'm not sure.
That's what I like to think.
Maybe that's what she used the invisible ink for. She didn't throw it in the river, she used it to send letters to her daughter that Rudolph couldn't see.
Kathryn (37:56)
⁓ yeah, let's pretend that's true.
Gina (37:58)
I like that.
Okay, retcon, that's true.
Kathryn (38:01)
Okay.
I love being able to make our own reality here.
Gina (38:08)
We should, yeah, we need to create rumors about the stories that we tell more often because it does always make me feel better.
Kathryn (38:12)
I know we do that,
we do that quite a bit, but I feel like we haven't in a while. Not a big one, yeah. We'll bring that back.
Gina (38:16)
Not as much, yeah. No.
Yeah, one more really sad thing. So sorry. Mata Hari's body was not claimed by any of her surviving family members. So instead, France gave her body to science. And as part of that, her head was removed and kept embalmed in a museum of anatomy in Paris where it remained until the year 2000 when archivists
Kathryn (38:25)
great. Jesus.
God.
Gina (38:50)
found that it had gone missing. And to this day, Mata Hari's head has never been found.
Kathryn (38:58)
God, do we want to start the rumor that her daughter took it? I'm trying to spin this. I'm trying so hard to spin this into the happy ending that I want.
Gina (39:06)
We can start that rumor.
We can start that rumor. But I think it might be ⁓ a little bit chronologically impossible, but we could start it.
Kathryn (39:16)
⁓ is her daughter dead?
Gina (39:18)
Super dead, yeah, because they had her head in the museum until 2000. And her daughter died. Her daughter died like during World
Kathryn (39:25)
Well, how old was her daughter?
you said, sorry, wow, I literally already repressed the fact you literally said that she died in the story. In my head, see, I already changed the narrative. In my head, she like grew up, she's someone's grandma. Like, yeah, sorry, I really fully just ignored what you said about her daughter dying, I'm so sorry. You're out here like, what are you talking about? Okay, so sorry, yes. Yeah, she's been dead a long, long time.
Gina (39:38)
Well, she's fine.
I do prefer that.
I'm that I said she's super dead. I feel like that might have been a little harsh. I'm sorry. It's because I'm uncomfortable, because
this part of the story makes me so uncomfortable because it's so aggressively sad that humor becomes the coping mechanism.
Kathryn (40:04)
Yeah, I was, I did not think this was going to be a sad story.
Gina (40:10)
I know, yeah. We could talk a little bit about legacy though, which isn't quite as sad. Okay, so in the years following Mata Hari's death, the prevailing narrative was still that she was this dangerous double agent. And even though a lot of the public had turned against her, there was still this immense draw towards her and her story. I think I read that the first movie about Mata Hari came out like two years after she died. It was pretty much immediate.
Kathryn (40:11)
That's okay.
Hmm.
Gina (40:38)
And there
were, of course, countless more movies that followed, along with books and TV shows and musicals and songs and all sorts of stuff, either directly telling a version of her story or drawing inspiration from her story when creating dangerous female characters and things like that. So that's kind of where you get the archetype of like the sexy girl spy, woman spy today. And of course, there were people who doubted her guilt.
Kathryn (41:02)
Mm-hmm.
Gina (41:06)
There always were, they just weren't the loudest voices. But that opinion gained significant momentum in 1930 when the German government, get ready for this word, exculpated her. Which is a word I just learned, but it basically just means like a very official way of declaring that someone was innocent. So Germany admitted like she didn't do anything wrong, she wasn't really a functional spy for us, and you should not have found her guilty.
Kathryn (41:20)
⁓
⁓
This happened in the 30s?
Gina (41:37)
1930.
Kathryn (41:38)
That is surprising. That seems like something that happens years and years later when people have had generation to reflect and figure out they were wrong. That feels very soon.
Gina (41:52)
Mm-hmm.
I don't know why they did it so fast, to be honest.
Good for them!
Kathryn (41:58)
Yeah, yeah, I'm not mad about it, I'm just confused.
Gina (42:02)
Yeah, yeah, I'm not really sure. Maybe Germany was going through one of its nice phases.
Kathryn (42:05)
⁓ Interesting.
Well, that certainly didn't last long in 1930.
Gina (42:09)
Sorry. Didn't last long. Nope.
Nope, nope. They were having one single good day.
Kathryn (42:17)
They were like, hey, we gotta scrub this part of our reputation before we move on to the next thing.
Gina (42:22)
my god!
⁓ God, where even am I? So yes, Germany exculpated her, which is a word we can all use in front of people now to impress everyone. But of course, that didn't stop certain journalists and historians and other record keepers from pushing the narrative that she was still some evil traitor. Those kinds of people have always been around. But belief in her innocence was definitely starting to gain momentum.
Kathryn (42:48)
Mm-hmm.
Gina (42:52)
and people continued to talk about her story and dissect it and analyze it and ask ourselves what that says about us as a society that we would do this to a woman like this. Up until 2017, 100 years after her death, when the French government released over 1,000 pages of documents about Mata Hari. And these documents revealed that she was not
in fact, a German spy, and had really only committed one true act of espionage her entire life. And it was for France.
Innocent through and through. Yeah. These days, if you want to pay homage to Mata Hari, you certainly can. There is a museum in her hometown. I cannot pronounce the name of her hometown. I'm so sorry. I'm not even going to try, but I will put it in the show notes. The museum is called the Fries Museum, but it's spelled like fries, like french fries. And they have a whole section of the museum dedicated to Mata Hari where you can see a lot of like photos and artifacts and memorabilia from her life.
Kathryn (43:30)
Wow.
Gina (43:59)
But one thing that I think is really cool is, so Mata Hari kept scrapbooks throughout a lot of her life and you can see them at this museum. So, you know, if a trip to the Netherlands is out of the budget this year, I totally get it. You can also see parts of the scrapbooks online. So I'll put a link to those in the show notes as well, because they are really cool. It's very cool.
Kathryn (44:19)
Ooh, that's so cool. I love
a scrapbook. I love when things like that are cataloged. Like if someone kept, I love when someone has the foresight to like keep their own record. Do you know what I mean? So that you don't have to rely on everyone else's perspective. I love when people like give you the information for themselves.
Gina (44:29)
Mm-hmm.
Yes. ⁓
Yes, and this is very like, I've looked at some of them. I haven't gone through the scrapbooks exhaustively, but you can track like the stages of her career and like you can tell about how she felt about certain things by like the newspaper article that she took a clipping from or a picture that she like loved of herself that she put in there. It really like, I already feel like this story, like her story.
Kathryn (44:57)
That's so cool.
Yeah.
Gina (45:09)
humanizes her a lot because I still think even in death she has a lot of charisma in that gravitational pull that makes you want to learn about her. But these really, really humanize her. And they're phenomenal. So yeah, go check them out. But yeah, that's the story of Mata Hari.
Kathryn (45:25)
That was a lot, that was so, that was different than what I thought it was gonna be. I thought she was gonna be like killing people left and right. know what I mean? Just the way, cause I've, only have the story of her that like they wanted us to have. You know what I mean? I've never had, all I knew was she was this infamous spy at one point. That's fascinating.
Gina (45:35)
Mm-hmm.
I know, I love being like, wrong, you know?
Kathryn (45:56)
Yeah, yeah, you do.
Gina (45:58)
Like don't get me wrong, I would
love Badass Female Spy, but it's cool to know where that comes from and why and how that works.
Kathryn (46:05)
Yeah, you have a lot of people that, like, we all think we knew one thing about them, and we actually don't.
Gina (46:15)
Well, there's one thing I love, it's being wrong. That's the biggest joke in the world.
It's funny. But anyway, ⁓ after that long, long tale, do you perhaps have a scary on top for me?
Kathryn (46:26)
That's funny, that is the funniest thing we've ever said on this podcast.
I do, I have something very short and sweet because I feel like we've been doing A, a lot of heavy topics and B, ⁓ like rabbit hole dives and I knew that this was gonna be a long one so I wanted to do something very quick and fun. So we are going to do a telepathy test real quick.
Gina (46:53)
Okay.
⁓
damn! Okay, cool, hold on. Let me get my screen ready.
Kathryn (47:00)
Yeah.
So I figured we can both do it if you want, or just one of us and then call it a day can depend on. We can do whatever we want. This is our podcast. So one of us, whoever wants to go first is fine. I'll let you choose because this is your episode. You think of a shape and a color. So like in your head, you have to imagine or think about like
a blue square or a red star or a yellow circle, whatever. It has to be basic because we're doing this real quick and dirty, nothing advanced. This is telepathy 101. ⁓ So you just think about it and then that person will let the other one know when you're ready. And then you just have to guess. And then we can figure out whether or not we're able to communicate telepathically.
Gina (47:40)
Okay.
Okay.
sweet. I want to have the shape and the color in my brain first because I had one pop in my head as soon as you said that so I'm just I'm gonna keep it in here.
Kathryn (47:58)
Which do you want to do?
Okay,
okay, okay.
Gina (48:08)
I'm ready when you are.
Kathryn (48:10)
See, I'm already overthinking it.
yellow circle.
Gina (48:15)
red circle. Close though.
Okay, so that was the warmup. And we also are very apart from each other physically. So that could also be hampering our telepathic waves. I don't know how that works. Okay.
Kathryn (48:18)
Yeah. Okay.
yeah, we do have to send this digitally.
Okay wait, so now I'm thinking one.
Gina (48:34)
this is kind of scary. Okay.
Kathryn (48:37)
I'm ready.
Gina (48:38)
Yellow star.
Kathryn (48:40)
Blue star! Okay, so we can do shapes. We're just still a little... Yeah. Yeah, colors. What is... Like, color's fake anyway. It's all a spectrum.
Gina (48:42)
⁓ Okay, so we got the shapes right.
We can figure out the colors. We'll work on that.
Ha
Kathryn (48:55)
Okay, not bad, not bad. 50%.
Gina (48:57)
Nice, that was fun.
You know what I think we would be really good at? I don't know if I ever told you about this, but there's this card game. I think it might just be literally called telepathy, or I think maybe it's called medium, where it's kind of like taboo. Have I told you about this?
Kathryn (49:12)
think it is medium.
⁓ You told me about this. It's called either medium or psychic or something very literal like that. You've told me about this before.
Gina (49:18)
Okay. Yeah, like the one where,
you eat, what is it? You have like a card that has a word on it and you both on the count of three like say a word that you think is connected to that word. I think that's how it works.
Kathryn (49:25)
I'll remember.
Yeah,
and then you try to like get to, yeah. we should do that as a scary on top sometime. I feel like we would do, here's the thing, we would either be very, very good at that or really, really, really horrible because our brains think totally differently, but we also know how the other one thinks. So I feel like it.
Gina (49:34)
You bridge it. So you keep going. Yeah.
We should. Maybe, yeah.
Yeah.
but we could wind up swapping
where I say a Kathryn thing and you say a Gina thing.
Kathryn (49:58)
That's what I was gonna say. Yeah, like
I feel like I would approach that like, okay, what would Gina say? And then like, if we do the same thing, we would accidentally like overcompensate.
Gina (50:10)
That would be kind of funny. We should give it a go.
Kathryn (50:13)
That would be fun.
We'll do that sometime. Yeah, that's it. That's all I have for scary on top.
Gina (50:16)
Yeah. All right, cool.
beautiful. Thank you so much.
Kathryn (50:21)
Thank you. Thank you for your story for the two parter. Unfortunately, we are back to just one episode per week next week. ⁓ If you cannot wait that long, like I said earlier, we do have behind the scenes stuff on Patreon. ⁓ Otherwise, until next time, little spoons keep it cool.
Gina (50:41)
Keep it creepy.
