Sunday 1 December 2002

Britain Planned To Threaten Hitler With Nuclear Bomb

Britain had plans to threaten Germany with a nuclear bomb during World War II to prevent Hitler launching V2 rockets at London, newly released files showed Sunday.

The threat was mooted in the summer of 1944, two years after the development of nuclear bombs had begun but a year before any had been tested.

The intention to bluff the Nazis out of using the supersonic V2 rocket failed. In the last seven months of the war, over 3,000 V2s were launched, killing some 2,700 people in Britain.

The nuclear idea was put forward by Guy Liddell, head of MI5's counter-espionage branch during the war, whose diaries have been released by the Public Records Office and carried by newspapers Sunday.

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