A Nerveless Nazi-Killer

As part of our occasional series pro ling remarkable yet unheralded characters from history, Gavin Mortimer introduces Johnny Hopper, the British lone-wolf ghter who embarked on a campaign of violence that made him one of the most wanted men in Nazi-occupied France

- Gavin Mortimer

Johnny Hopper and his wife, Paulette, arrived at the cafe on the rue Beaubourg on schedule. They chose a table at the end of the long narrow cafe, their backs to the wall and with an unobstructed view of the entrance.

It was Paris, 8 May 1942, a dangerous place to be for an Englishman who was the subject of a nationwide manhunt having slain two policemen the previous year in Caen.

Hopper ordered two coffees and waited for the arrival of a doctor, a member of the Resistance. He claimed he had information about Paul Cole, a former British soldier who had been captured in 1941 and turned by the Gestapo into one of their agents.

The doctor arrived on time and Hopper rose to greet him. But as he advanced he noticed another man coming into the cafe. Then two soldiers came into view on the street outside. Hopper reached for the pistol in his pocket; at the same time the man accompanying the doctor went for his weapon. Within seconds, shots were being exchanged across the cafe as terrified customers dived for cover. Hopper felt a blow to his arm. “I didn’t know at first how badly I was wounded,” he recalled. “I ducked back through a door next to our table, to take stock and to get a fresh gun unstrapped from my leg. It was only a sort of closet back there, but the Germans must have assumed it was a rear door to the alley. I had hit all of them more or less badly, and when I kicked my door open, they were all running out the front door to get help.”