Jebsen’s parents, both dead by the time he arrived in Freiburg, had been born in Denmark but adopted German citizenship when the shipping firm Jebsen & Jebsen moved to Hamburg.

When Popov was challenged to a sword duel over a girl, it was Jebsen, as his second, who quietly arranged a peaceful solution, to Popov’s relief, “not thinking my looks would be improved by a bright red cicatrix.” He loved to spin a story, to “deliberately stir up situations to see what would happen.” But he also liked to broker deals. He spoke abruptly, in short phrases, hardly ever used an adjective and was, above all, ironic.” Jebsen walked with a limp and hinted that this was from an injury sustained in some wild escapade: in truth it was caused by the pain of varicose veins, to which he was a secret martyr. “He had much warmth too, and his intelligence was reflected in his face, in the alertness of his steel-blue eyes. “His coldness, aloofness, could be forbidding, yet everyone was under his spell,” Popov wrote. Where Popov was noisily gregarious, Jebsen was watchful. He was slight and thin, with dark blond hair, high cheekbones, and a turned‑up nose. He had what were then known as “bedroom eyes” indeed, the bedroom was his main focus of interest.

Women frequently found him irresistible, with his easy manners, “loose, sensual mouth,” and green eyes behind heavy lids. He had “a well-flattened, typically Slav nose, complexion sallow, broad shoulders, athletic carriage, but rather podgy, white and well-kept hands,” which he waved in wild gesticulation. Opinion was divided on his looks: “He smiles freely showing all his teeth and in repose his face is not unpleasant, though certainly not handsome,” wrote one male contemporary.

Popov had a round, open face, with hair brushed back from a high forehead. “We both had some intellectual pretensions,” wrote Popov, but “ addicted to sports cars and sporting girls and had enough money to keep them both running.” Popov was a law student, while Jebsen was taking an economics degree, the better to manage the family firm. This inseparable pair of international playboys roistered around Freiburg, behaving badly. Popov drove a BMW Jebsen, a supercharged Mercedes 540K convertible. Both were spoiled, charming, and feckless. Jebsen, the heir to a large shipping company, was two years older. Popov, the son of a wealthy Serbian industrialist from Dubrovnik, was twenty-five. READ MOREĭusan “Dusko” Popov and Johann “Johnny” Jebsen met in 1936 at the University of Freiburg in southern Germany. Their relationship, based almost entirely on frivolity, would have a profound impact on world history. Their friendship was founded on a shared appreciation of money, cars, parties, and women, in no particular order and preferably all at the same time.

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