GREAT PEOPLE FORGOTTEN BY HISTORY

Real-life007 - Dusan Popov

James Bond, agent007, spy, intelligent, charming playboy was created by Ian Fleming in 1953. But who was the inspiration for this imaginary character? Is there a man like James Bond in reality? The answer is yes - Dusan Popov!

This is one of the most interesting spy stories from WWII.

Early life – education

Dusan Popov was born in Titel in 1912 in wealthy, serbian family. He grew up in Dubrovnik where he started his education. As a teenager he moved to England, then he continued his studies in Paris. In 1936 he earned his doctorate degree in law in University of Freiburg. At te age of 25 he had already fluently spoken English, French, Italian and German. Dring his studies in Germany he met one very special man - Johann Neilsen-Jebsen. Johann and Dusan shared anti-nazi sympathies. Just one day after finishing his Phd studies Dusan got arrested, but with Yugoslav government intervention he was realised from prison and bunished from Germany. Dusan returned to Dubrovnik and started his lawyer company.

Abver, 1940.

When Battle of Britain stared , German intelligence service needed more men for spy activities. Johhan joined Abver and recommended his friend Dusan as a potential agent, so Nazis sent him to Belgrade for meeting Dusan. Popov was surprised with his’s offer, but it took one sentence to convince Popov to join Abver : ‘’The best way to beat Nazis is being in their team’’. Dusan went straight to British embassy in Belgrade and offered his services to british intelligence service. He was living on a relation Lisabon – London. He gained full trust of Nazis very quickly and managed to convince them of having a lot of spies in Britain who worked for him. So Germans started giving money for nonexistent agents. All that money (worth about today’s 2 000 000$ ) was actually going to Britains. In return Nazis were supplied with false reports of british army.

America - Perl Harbour

In 1941 the Abver had sent Dusan to America. His task was to investigate and gather information about Perl Harbour. Popov had meetings with FBI chief, Edgar Hoover, and tried to warn him about Japan’s plan of attacking that american port. Unfortunately, Hoover doubted in Popov’s double agent Job and didn’t take those warnings seriously.

Day D

The huge military operation like Overlord demanded serious preparations in all aspects. The secret operation called ‘’Fortitude’’ was a plan for mass deception behind Overlord. Allies didn’t want Hitler to know where will the invasion take its place. So they tried to assure him that possible places for attack will be Cale or even Norway. Popov’s has continued to give information about Nazi plans to Allies, and supplied Germans with false information. Because of Popov’s reports just a few weeks before the attack German troops moved about 250 000 soldiers to Cale .

Playboy

Popov was very intelligent man with great personality and charm. He was real cosmopolit. He lived in a lot of Eurpoean and American cities. Popov’s remarkable life was filed with a lot of women. He was much the stereotypical international playboy with two or three girlfriends in every city he lived. Especialy interesting was his releationship with Holiwood actress Simon Simon. He was also smoking and drinking a lot, as James Bond does in Fleming’s books. In fact, Fleming’s description of James Bond in the books is very similar to how Dusko Popov looked.