Nazis turned candy bars into a secret weapon

First, force the British to endure food shortages—then make them eat exploding candy bars. That was at least part of the Nazi plan to destroy Britain during World War II, according to drawings of German weapons recently seen for the first time, the Smithsonian reports.

Among the drawings: a bomb hidden in a motor-oil can and a mess tin of bangers and mash that also held a bomb, per the BBC.

Then there's the chocolate bar (viewable in this tweet), which was designed to detonate seven seconds after the chocolate was broken. The Nazis reportedly hoped to assassinate Winston Churchill with such a bar by placing it amid items going into the War Cabinet's dining room, according to a letter discovered in 2009, the Telegraph reported three years ago.

That 1943 letter was written by Lord Rothschild to artist Laurence Fish, who also made the drawings of various Nazi booby-traps. Rothschild—"a larger-than-life character, a scientist and self-appointed expert on many things," the BBC says—was also one third of MI5's counter-espionage unit, along with his secretary (and future wife) and police inspector Donald Fish.

Rothschild wanted someone to draw the devices he was finding—in order to create a sort of manual for any Brits who might encounter them—and Fish recommended his son, Laurence, a self-taught draughtsman, the Gloucestershire Echo reports.