A big thanks to Katie for bringing this story to my attention. I majored in WWII History at uni, and my waist line currently majors in chocolate, so this is the perfect topic for me to discuss.
Newly uncovered WWII documents reveal that the Nazis were plotting to assassinate Winston Churchill with a bomb disguised as a chocolate bar. The plan was to coat the explosives with a thin layer of dark chocolate and then package them as ‘Peter’s’ branded chocolate bars. The idea was to have them smuggled into the War Cabinet’s dining room where Churchill and other important members of parliament would often meet. The device was designed to explode seven seconds after being unwrapped, killing everyone within a few metres of the sweet and sugary impact. The theory behind this plot was to exploit the Prime Minister’s weakness for chocolate.
1920’s Peter’s chocolate bar wrapper. Photo courtesy of The Candy Wrapper Archive.
Unfortunately for the Nazis, it wasn’t just their chocolate that was foiled. British spies discovered the plot and quickly warned one of MI5’s most senior intelligence chiefs – Lord Victor Rothschild. He proceeded to alert the nation and advised them to look out for exploding candy bars. He even had an illustrator friend, Laurence Fish, draw up pictures of the bars so he could distribute them amongst the public. Interestingly, Fish’s wife found the correspondence between her husband and Rothschild in 2009. The letter was dated May 4, 1943 and was marked ‘secret’. It detailed the German plot and supposedly included a rather poor drawing of the device by Rothschild.
Suffice to say, with the plot made public, there were no chocolate bombs exploding in parliament.
A little research on my behalf also revealed that chocolate wasn’t the only item that the Nazis were planning on using to disguise explosives. German saboteurs also utilized tinned plums, throat lozenges, shaving brushes, batteries, wood, and my personal favourite – stuffed dogs. I can’t imagine how the latter would even work.
I’d like to finish by thanking everyone who contacted me after my Darrell Lea article. It was incredibly touching and I very much appreciated it.
Have a lovely Thursday!
File this under: easy ways for someone who wanted to kill me to do so. I’m about as disciplined as Crabbe and Goyle – floating cupcake? Nothing suss!
Baha. I need to work out a way to install a floating packet of Mint Balls in our house.
so evil to use chocolate for bad and not good
Exactly! Just when we thought Hitler couldn’t have been any worse…
I know!
Using chocolate as a cover for bombs? That’s chocolate blasphemy, that is.
Agreed! What a waste of good dark chocolate 😉
Holy theme change, Batman!
I wonder why someone thought it was going to be more effective to put EXPLOSIVES in a chocolate bar – rather than, say, good old-fashioned poison.
Haha, apparently that idea was far too practical.
No-one could accuse the Nazis of not having a flair for the dramatic.