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A Memorable History of Deception and Spy Capers

Khalid Elhassan June 7, 2020 34 min

Operation Mincemeat - World War II — Items recovered from Major Martin and his briefcase. BBC

25. Expelled From School, Then Expelled by the Nazis

Gestapo headquarters in Berlin. Bundesarchiv Bild

Popov studied in England – where he got expelled from a prestigious prep school – and France. He then returned home to study law at the University of Belgrade. At age 22, soon after the Nazis assumed power, he went to Germany to get a Ph.D. There, he befriended a rich German student named Johnny Jebsen, who held anti-Nazi views. Until then, Popov had simply been a dilettante playboy, with no interest in politics. His time in Germany taught him to loathe the Nazis, and he developed strong political opinions against them.

Popov was indiscreet, however. In 1937, he was arrested by the Gestapo on suspicion of being a communist, and tossed into prison. His friend Jebsen came to his aid, alerting Popov’s father, who in turn got the Yugoslav government involved. After high-level contacts between Yugoslavia’s prime minister and Herman Goering, then head of the Gestapo, Popov was released from jail, but ordered expelled from Germany.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.