35 Facts About Georges Kopp

Georges Kopp was a Belgium-educated engineer and inventor of Russian descent.

Georges Kopp is best known for his friendship with George Orwell, whom he commanded in the Spanish Civil War when both men were volunteers in the fight against fascism.

Georges Kopp was born in St Petersburg to Russian parents with Ashkenazi Jewish origins.

The family moved again in 1915 to Lausanne, Switzerland, before returning to Schaerbeek in 1920, where Kopp studied civil engineering at the Universite libre de Bruxelles.

In 1921, Georges Kopp's father died, leaving the family in debt and forcing Georges Kopp to interrupt his studies to earn money, working as an engineer to support his family, initially living with his mother in Schaerbeek.

Georges Kopp worked for a firm of heating manufacturers from 1923 until 1932.

The onset of the Great Depression resulted in Georges Kopp being laid off from work in 1933.

Georges Kopp struggled to make a living as a consultant, running up bills and allegedly having affairs.

In October 1936, Georges Kopp crossed the border from France into Spain and volunteered as an officer for the Republicans by joining the POUM militia column.

Georges Kopp first saw active service on the Aragon front near Zaragoza, followed by Huesca.

Orwell and Georges Kopp developed a close working relationship over this period, establishing lasting mutual trust and respect.

Georges Kopp risked his life to stop the fighting at the Cafe Moka, but the ideological war within the republican movement was to end in disaster for Georges Kopp.

However, Anna Funder, in her 2023 book Wifedom: Mrs Orwell's Invisible Life, reports that although Eileen realised that Georges Kopp was in love with her, his feelings were not reciprocated.

Georges Kopp was on hand to help his friend but returned to the front to participate in the Battle of Chimillas.

Georges Kopp travelled to Valencia to register his new position as an engineer, having risen to become captain in the general staff of the 45th Mixed Brigade of the Spanish Republican Army.

Georges Kopp had been advised to remain in Valencia to allow the dust to settle, which he ignored, possibly because he had "simply not taken it seriously enough".

Georges Kopp was arrested as soon as he arrived at his hotel in Barcelona, his papers confiscated, and imprisoned under appalling conditions.

Georges Kopp was one of thousands of volunteers who fought in Spain to oppose fascism and was imprisoned by its own side, under the banner of an ideological purge imposed by the NKVD directed by Stalin.

Georges Kopp was interrogated, tortured and moved between prisons, detention camps in and around Barcelona for the next 18 months, largely out of sight.

Georges Kopp was released in December 1938 a free man but in a severely reduced state, flying to Toulouse before making his way to Brussels to see his daughter.

Georges Kopp had survived by building stories around himself, accused by the Communists of being a Trotskyist and dismissed by Trotsky himself as politically "centrist".

Whatever his allegiance, Georges Kopp was anti-fascist in a Europe that was on the brink of War against fascism.

Georges Kopp sought refuge in England in March 1939, in part at the invitation of Orwell.

Georges Kopp stayed with Eileen's brother, Laurence O'Shaughnessy and sister-in-law Gwen, where he was gradually nursed back to health.

Georges Kopp set out to work as an engineer in Marseilles, in Vichy France early 1941, where he remained for two and a half years working on a method for distilling synthetic oil from lignite, common in that part of France.

Georges Kopp himself remained ambivalent about whether working on this technology would actually help the Nazis but over the next year, he expanded his Vichy network, whilst simultaneously courting British Intelligence.

In March 1943, Georges Kopp suspended development of synthetic oil because of the "high risk of the Germans wiping out the Vichy Government".

Georges Kopp was given the order to cease operations and a week later, he arrived in London for demobilisation.

Georges Kopp initially moved back in with the O'Shaughnessys, where he met Gwen's sister, Doreen Hunton.

In February 1944, Georges Kopp moved to a flat in Canonbury Square and the following month, he married Doreen, witnessed by his friend George Orwell.

Georges Kopp moved his family to Toftcombs House in Biggar, South Lanarkshire, at the end of 1945, a radical change from town life to that of a "gentleman farmer" living in grand style, with a small holding of animals on the estate.

Georges Kopp worked as an engineer for a small factory in Edinburgh, but the income was never enough to sustain life at Toftcombs.

Two months later, Georges Kopp moved his family to France, bolstered by continued promises from potential investors in his designs.

Georges Kopp died suddenly on 15 July 1951 in Marseille, possibly of cardiac arrest; he had suffered from phlebitis in both legs, which may have created a blood clot that induced a pulmonary embolism.

Doreen reported that Georges Kopp was repairing a clock when he died.