Jona von Ustinov

Ustinov was born Jonah Freiherr von Ustinow in Jaffa, Palestine, then part of the Ottoman Empire, the son of Plato von Ustinov, a former Russian officer and naturalised citizen of the Kingdom of Württemberg who had married Magdalena Hall, then living in Jaffa, the daughter of the Ethiopian court lady Katharina Hall, also known as Welette-Iyesus and her husband, Moritz Hall, a Jewish-born convert to Protestantism, cannon-caster of Tewodros II of Ethiopia and missionary of St. Chrischona Pilgrim Mission [de] in Ethiopia, and later in Jaffa.

[6] There is a family photograph that shows Magdalena von Ustinov (née Hall) with her husband and their children, including Jona/Jonah, who disliked his forename so much that he chose the nickname "Klop" ("Bedbug" in Russian) by which he was known to his friends and relatives for the rest of his life.

That peripatetic life engendered in Ustinov a cosmopolitan attitude, which made him averse to any kind of nationalism.

[citation needed] During World War I, Ustinov served in the German Army's Air Service unit Flieger-Abteilung (Artillerie) 250.

As a result, he lost his job and chose to become a British citizen, which allowed him to avoid internment and later, during the war, deportation.

[29] Peter Wright, author of Spycatcher, alleged that Ustinov had been discovered by another member of the British intelligence community a short time before his death, selling books from his library to supplement his income.