Page 29 - BBC History - September 2017

JOHNNY HOPPER

He furthered his

reputation as a

cold-blooded killer
by assassinating
an SS o!cer he

described as a

“nasty piece
of goods”

Hopper’s freedom came to an end on farmer. He granted few interviews about his between. Asked why he did what he did,
25 July 1942, when he was arrested for wartime exploits, though in 1991, the year of Hopper replied: “I don’t believe in taking
carrying a concealed weapon during a routine his death, he told a journalist that “you don’t things lying down.”
stop-and-search at a metro station. Taken to need technique, you need nerve”.
Gestapo headquarters at Rue des Saussaies, Nonetheless, the question remains: was Gavin Mortimer is a military historian. His latest
Hopper spent eight months in their hands, Hopper a freedom fighter or a common book is The Long Range Desert Group in World
although curiously he avoided execution. criminal? Undoubtedly some of his acts were War II (Osprey, 2017)
Instead he was transported to Mauthausen for personal gain but he also exhibited
concentration camp, and then to Dachau, defiance at a time when few in France dared DISCOVER MORE
from where he was liberated by the stand up to their conqueror. The
BOOK
Americans in April 1945. contemporary French press described him as E A Thorn in the Side: Story of Johnny
Hopper settled in East Anglia after the war, a bandit; he called himself a Resistance Hopper by Bill Knapp (Carbon-Based
remarrying and becoming a mushroom fighter. The truth probably lies somewhere in Books, 2007)

BBC History Magazine 29