A Nazi plot to kill Sir Winston Churchill with a bar of exploding chocolate
during the Second World War has been revealed in historic papers.


Giving a new meaning to the dessert name “death by chocolate”, Adolf Hitler’s
bomb makers coated explosive devices with a thin layer of rich dark
chocolate, then packaged it in expensive-looking black and gold paper.


The Germans apparently planned to use secret agents working in Britain to
discreetly place the bars - branded as Peters Chocolate - among other luxury
items taken into the dining room used by the War Cabinet during the
conflict.


The lethal slabs of confection were packed with enough explosives to kill
anyone within several metres.


But the plot was foiled by British spies who discovered the chocolate was
being made and tipped off one of MI5’s most senior intelligence chiefs, Lord
Victor Rothschild, before the wartime prime minister’s life could be
endangered.

Lord Rothschild, a scientist in peace time as well as a key member of the
Rothschild banking family, immediately typed a letter to a talented
illustrator seconded to his unit, asking him to draw poster-size images of
the chocolate to warn the public to be on the look-out.


His letter to the artist, Laurence Fish, is dated May 4, 1943 and was written
from his secret bunker in Parliament Street, London.


It was unearthed by Mr Fish's wife, journalist Jean Bray, as she sorted
through his possessions after the artist's death at the age of 89 in 2009.


The letter, marked "secret", reads: “Dear Fish, I wonder if you
could do a drawing for me of an explosive slab of chocolate.


“We have received information that the enemy are using pound slabs of
chocolate which are made of steel with a very thin covering of real
chocolate.


“Inside there is high explosive and some form of delay mechanism…When you
break off a piece of chocolate at one end in the normal way, instead of it
falling away, a piece of canvas is revealed stuck into the middle of the
piece which has been broken off and a ticking into the middle of the
remainder of the slab.”


The letter explained how the mechanism would be activated when the piece of
chocolate was pulled sharply, which would also pull the canvas, and Lord
Rothschild said he was enclosing a “very poor sketch” done by someone who
had seen one of the bars.


He asked the artist to indicate in the text on his drawing that a bomb would
go off seven seconds after the piece of chocolate and attached canvas was
pulled out.


Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/9405919/Death-by-chocolate-plot-to-kill-Sir-Winston-Churchill.html