MI5 issued a secret warning that the Nazis might be planning to assassinate members of the Royal family in the final days of the Second World War, declassified government files have revealed.
In a plot reminiscent of the fictional bestseller The Eagle Has Landed, MI5 feared the Nazis could drop elite paratroopers into England with the objective of assassinating either senior members of the Royal family or Winston Churchill, the prime minister.
The warning came just days after Adolf Hitler launched his surprise offensive in the Ardennes forest in Belgium in December 1944 – which became known as the Battle of the Bulge – sparking panic among the Allies.
The intelligence report drawn up by MI5 and the Air Ministry was passed on to Sir Samuel Findlater Stewart, a senior British civil servant, who wrote on Dec 20 1944 to Gen Colin Callander, deputy chief of Britain’s Home Defence Forces: “Through the courtesy of MI5, with whom, as you may know, I have certain contacts, I had the opportunity today to read an appreciation, prepared I understand by the Air Ministry, on the subject of the enemy’s ability to mount parachute raids on this country.”
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