Revealed: the Nazi plot to poison British troops

Published on Sunday 3 April 2011 16:57

THE sweet taste of victory was set to turn bitter and deadly. Chocolate bars, the rationed treats of British soldiers and war-weary citizens, were to be poisoned by the Nazis as part of an elaborate sabotage operation at the end of the Second World War.

The secret files of MI5, which had been closed for the past 70 years, were opened yesterday to reveal a plot to poison chocolate, sugar and Nescaf coffee in bid to keep the embers of the Third Reich burning after Germany's surrender in 1945.

According to the reports released by MI5 to the National Archives at Kew in London, German spies had been equipped with everything from poisoned pills disguised as aspirin to cigarette lighters that gave off lethal fumes when ignited.

Female agents were supplied with "microbe" weapons hidden in handbag mirrors, which were to have been used against top-ranking officials in Allied-occupied territory.

And there were warnings about a Nazi swastika-shaped belt buckle that contained a mini-pistol capable of firing two shots.

British commanders were so worried about the danger of everyday items being poisoned that they recommended banning their troops from eating German food or smoking German cigarettes as they advanced through the country in 1945.

MI5 even arranged for a bar of chocolate and a tin of Nescaf seized from a captured saboteur to be tested for poison.

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The Nazi leadership also planned to plant sleeper agents around the world after the war, with the aim of provoking global unrest and creating a "Fourth Reich", the newly declassified files disclose.

A captured Nazi report of a meeting in Berlin in October 1944 shows that discussions were held about poisoning food, wine and whisky.

In April 1945, four US army soldiers were hospitalised, one of whom died, apparently as a result of drinking poisoned alcohol obtained in Germany.

A British intelligence report on "poison as a post-war weapon" highlighted the "past and present German pre-occupation with the subject".

A secret document drawn up by the supreme headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force in April 1945 noted the shift in Nazi tactics from conventional warfare towards assassination and terrorism.

It stated: "Within Germany, assassination attempts are likely to be made against important Allied individuals and there is evidence that a policy of general terrorism may be adopted against the occupying troops."

In a reference to fears about Nazi poisons, the report said: "Captured agents and hidden equipment dumps should be searched for cigarette lighters, medicines, foods and cigarettes, which are obviously not part of a food dump prepared for the use of the agents themselves."Lord Rothschild, then head of MI5's counter-espionage section, who had Winston Churchill's cigars checked for poison, had a bar of chocolate and a tin of Nescaf seized from German forces sent away for tests. Dr Bruce White, of the National Institute for Medical Research in Hampstead, London, wrote back to say his scientists planned to "try your chocolate on a monkey", but the files do not reveal the results.