Johnny Jebsen

Johann-Nielsen Jebsen, nicknamed "Johnny", was an anti-Nazi German intelligence officer and British double agent (code name ARTIST) during World War II. Jebsen recruited Dušan Popov (who became the British agent Tricycle) to the and through him later joined the Allied cause. Kidnapped from Lisbon by the Germans shortly before the 1944 Normandy landings, Jebsen was tortured in prison and spent time in a concentration camp before disappearing; he was presumed killed at the end of the war.

In a 2012 reassessment of the Allies' use of double agents in World War II, historian Ben Macintyre called Jebsen a hero. Despite months of torture from the Sicherheitsdienst and later Gestapo, Jebsen refused to talk and protected not only his friend Popov, but the thousands of Allied troops due to land in Normandy, at the expense of his own life.

Jebsen features extensively in Popov's book Spy-Counterspy.

Early life Jebsen was born in Hamburg in 1917, heir to the shipping firm Jebsen & Jessen. His parents, who both died while Jebsen was still a child, were of Danish origin, but held German citizenship after they had moved the company to the country. Early in his life, Jebsen considered his citizenship a convenience, with deep roots remaining in his Danish ancestry. During childhood, he visited England and became enamoured with the country, adopting the mannerisms and the language. On , Jebsen was abducted from Lisbon, Portugal, and driven overnight to France. Aloys Schreiber, the head of German counter-intelligence in Lisbon,