Encore: The Spy Who Inspired 007 | A Friend Among Foes | 1

The Spy Who

Wondery

History

4.6 • 669 Ratings

🗓️ 22 July 2025

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It’s 1940 and Serbian playboy Duško Popov hopes to sit out World War Two in Belgrade. But when his best friend, Johnny Jebsen shows up at his door to call in an old debt, Popov finds himself sucked into the wartime spy game – as an agent for both Nazi Germany and Britain’s MI6.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Wondery Plus subscribers can binge full seasons of The Spy Who early and add free on Apple
0:06.9	podcasts or the Wondry app.
0:09.2	This season of The Spy Who, we're revisiting the fascinating story of Dushko Popov, The Spy Who inspired
0:16.1	a playboy who loved casinos and beautiful women.
0:23.8	Popov was Ian Fleming's blueprint for James Bond,
0:31.6	with the world speculating who'll play the next 007, let's go back to the 1940s and meet the real deal. Dushko Popov wakes from his alcohol-drenched slumber.
0:42.2	Gestapo!
0:43.3	Open up!
0:45.3	It's 1937 and Popov's studying law in Freiburg, Nazi Germany.
0:50.3	Open up!
0:52.3	Popov drags himself out of bed.
0:55.2	He's in his mid-twenties with short black hair.
0:58.6	Yawning, he unlocks the door.
1:01.5	Four Gestapo officers barge past.
1:03.9	One confronts Popov as the others ransack his flats.
1:07.2	Dusko Popov, you are under arrest.
1:09.1	On what charge?
1:10.0	The Gestapo officer punches Popov in the stomach.
1:13.6	Popov crumples under the blow.
1:15.4	Before he can recover, two officers grab him.
1:18.1	They drag him outside to a waiting car, throw him into the vehicle's boot, and slam the door shut.
1:26.2	Popov snaps awake as cold water hits his face.
	...

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