8. The Nazis Awakened This Dilettante Playboy’s Interest in Politics
After Popov studied in England – where he got expelled from a prestigious prep school – and France, he returned home to study law at the University of Belgrade. When he was twenty-two, not long after the Nazis came to power, he headed to Germany to pursue a law doctorate at the University of Freiburg. There, he befriended a rich German student named Johann “Johnny” Jebsen, who had anti-Nazi views. Until then, Popov had simply been a dilettante playboy with no interest in politics. His time in Germany caused him to loathe the Nazis and develop strong political opinions against them.
The young Serb was not discrete about his views, however, and that proved to be a problem in the totalitarian Third Reich. In 1937 he was arrested by the Gestapo, who suspected that he might be a communist, and was tossed into prison. His friend Johnny Jebsen came to his aid and alerted 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, and expelled from Germany.
