An Allied soldier enters a house. He knows Nazis recently occupied it,
and now he’s tasked with making sure they didn’t leave anything behind. The rest of
his squad watches from a distance. This soldier drew the short straw; he must identify if any
Nazi booby traps are lurking in the floorboards, doorways, or objects left behind in the building.
The soldier slowly pushes the door with the butt of his gun.
It creaks open. There is a slight click. He dives for cover, but nothing happens.
He takes a deep breath, pushes off the ground, and slowly enters the house.
He scans the room for anything that might be booby-trapped. Unfortunately,
anything that can open, close, or be moved can also be rigged to explode by the Nazis.
The soldier continues through the house. He sees paintings on the walls that are slightly askew.
One is a painting of a young woman who looks eerily similar to his childhood sweetheart, whom
he married just before leaving for war. Even the most OCD soldiers leave these paintings alone as
there might be a hidden wire attached to them that could trigger a nearby bomb. The soldier walks
across the old floorboards. They groan with every step he takes. He spots something on a table.
It seems like the Nazis vacated this house in a hurry. They left a freshly cooked pot
of food on the table. The soldier has been fighting Nazis on the front line for over a
year. He hasn’t had a warm meal in days. He feels that if the Nazis had booby-trapped the house,
they would have rigged the door to explode or put a mine under the floorboards.
They must have just rushed out to avoid capture.
The soldier yells out of the house that it’s all clear. He approaches the army mess tin
and sniffs the stew that’s inside. He licks his lips as he pulls a rusty spoon from his sack.
The soldier plunges the spoon into the stew to see how it tastes.
The other men in the squad approach the house. They talk about how nice it will
be to sleep inside tonight. Through the open entryway,
they see the soldier already inside sticking his spoon into the tin full of stew. The commander
of the squad reaches out his hand and yells for the private to stop, but it's too late.
As the spoon stirs the pot, it triggers a hidden explosive device concealed on
the bottom of the mess tin. The bomb activates. The explosion rips through the soldier’s body,
sending his arm flying across the room. The squad is thrown backward as flames spew out of the
windows and doorway. Another Allied soldier has been lost to a deadly Nazi booby trap.
This type of thing happened over and over again to Allied troops as they pushed Nazi forces back
towards Germany. In fact, the Nazis were experts at setting booby traps. By the end of the war,
it seemed that Nazi soldiers booby-trapped practically everything they could get their
hands on. This was not only dangerous but caused psychological harm to Allied soldiers.
Not knowing if a weapons cache or a fallen comrade was booby-trapped to
explode led to intense anxiety in Allied troops as they fought to win the war.
But Nazis didn’t just booby trap things on the battlefield;
they also came up with some sinister ways to make everyday objects deadly as well.
Objects like thermoses or oil cans would have hidden triggers
and high-powered explosives concealed inside, and this was just the tip of the iceberg.
During World War II, MI5 discovered that many of these booby-trapped devices were making their way
aboard British ships and would detonate while en route to the mainland, slowing down supply
shipments and sewing seeds of doubt and fear in soldiers and regular citizens. It was for these
reasons that MI5 set up a counter-sabotage unit. Originally it only consisted of three members,
a scientist by the name of Victor Rothschild, his secretary Teresa Georgina Mayor,
and police detective inspector Donald Fish. Later, Fish’s son, Laurence,
would join the crew and draw intricate pictures of each of the booby traps they found with notes
on how to defuse the devices. Their work would help save countless lives from Nazi booby traps.
Imagine opening a candy bar and snapping off a piece of chocolate,
only to find a piece of canvas inside. As you ponder how the cloth got into your chocolate bar,
there is an explosion that blows off your hands and severely burns your face and body. You might
survive the initial blast, but the wounds you sustained would almost certainly kill you.
This was one of the most devious Nazi booby traps ever devised.
Some claim the chocolate bar bomb to be a booby trap that the Nazis created to assassinate British
Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The plan may have been to somehow sneak the chocolate onto
Churchill’s desk and wait until he got hungry. As the Prime Minister thought about ways to defeat
the Nazis, he would pull the wrapper back and snap off a piece of chocolate, which would activate
the bomb inside. It would then detonate, killing him and anyone else in his office.
However, this scenario never seemed likely to occur as there was no real way to make
sure that Winston Churchill would be the one to break off a piece of the fake candy bar.
The device itself was made out of steel with a thin covering of chocolate all around it.
The MI5 team found that once the bar was broken off and the canvas pulled,
a timer that would last seven seconds would start after which the chocolate bar would explode.
It’s unknown how many soldiers died as a result of opening exploding chocolate bars
during World War II. However, this sinister booby trap was enough to make soldiers warry
when they found chocolate or any other food left behind by Nazis. It also begs the question:
did any children or civilians stumbled across one of the chocolate bar bombs
and unknowingly break off a piece only to die as the fake candy exploded in their hands?
Another food that the Nazis booby trapped was peas. They actually used
the legumes in a couple of different deadly ways.
The pea can bomb was a simple booby trap. It was basically just a grenade inside of a can.
When the can was opened, it would trigger the explosive, and whoever was in the
vicinity would be torn apart by shrapnel and fire. This device would have been much
more deadly than the chocolate bar bomb as more explosives could be hidden within the tin can.
Some believe that the pea can bomb was designed to assassinate King George the VI
and wreak havoc in Buckingham Palace. However, this seems highly unlikely. Instead,
the Nazi pea can booby trap was probably used in abandoned Nazi hideouts and caches to injure or
kill Allied soldiers who were unlucky enough to grab the bomb disguised as a can of peas.
That being said, this booby-trapped legume did find its way to Ireland during World War II.
In 1940 three Nazi spies disguised themselves as civilians and were dropped off on the coast of
Ireland. In their possession were four pea can bombs. Rather than going directly to Buckingham
Palance or any major Allied target, the Nazis asked around if anyone could put them in touch
with the IRA. It’s probable that the Nazis were looking to strike up an alliance with
the militant groups to secure more soldiers for their eventual invasion of Ireland.
This would then allow them to launch more deadly attacks into Britain.
The pea can bombs might have been “travelers samples” that were brought by the Nazis
to show the IRA how to construct such a device. The Nazis may have hoped that if
an alliance couldn’t be secured, at least the IRA would be able to
cause mayhem using the booby-trapped pea cans, weakening Britain’s their forces.
When the three Nazis asked a man in a nearby town if he could put them in touch with the IRA,
the Irishman agreed. Little did the Nazis know that he had no intention
of bringing them to the IRA. Instead, he led them straight to the police,
who arrested the three Nazi spies and sent them to be interrogated by Allied intelligence.
But the pea can bomb was not the only Nazi booby trap that used peas.
They also designed a timing device that was triggered by the legumes.
This was a simple yet highly effective timing mechanism that was practically
undetectable by counter-espionage agents and soldiers in the field.
Dried peas would be secured in a test tube with a barrier separating them from water.
When the device was left undisturbed, the water would leak into the pea-portion of the tube,
and the peas would instantly start absorbing the water. As the peas filled with liquid,
they expanded and pushed the floating cork towards the top of the device. Once the screws met, they
would complete a circuit and detonate whatever explosive device the pea trigger was attached to.
The pea timing mechanism would have been hidden away in storage containers or supply crates.
Once the test tube was moved, the triggering process would initiate.
However, it took a while for the peas to absorb all of the water and push the cork up,
so the device was used by Nazis when they wanted a delayed reaction.
Perhaps this device would be hidden in a supply cache that the Nazis knew would be
loaded onto trucks and brought back to an Allied outpost. The pea timing mechanism would initiate
as the supplies were loaded onto the transportation vehicles but would not
detonate until some time later. If one of these devices found its way to an Allied
storehouse before exploding, it could cause a disastrous amount of damage.
Booby-trapped food devices seemed to be a common theme in Nazi warfare. Allied soldiers
had to contend with the army mess tin bomb, one of the most terrifying Nazi booby traps.
War turns men into monsters. The psychological toll of killing or watching those around you die
can never be undone. That is why the booby traps that targeted soldiers while they were resting
or not engaged in battle could cause the most psychological trauma. Just when a soldier thought
it was safe to sit down, take off their helmet, and have a delicious meal of bangers and mash,
they could find themselves the victim of another deadly Nazi booby trap.
The army mess tin bomb had a hidden compartment under the false bottom of the pot. When the
booby-trapped tin was used, a timer would be activated. The soldier would unknowingly
be eating out of a ticking time bomb. When the timer went off, the highly explosive
material crammed into the bottom of the mess tin would explode, sending food and shrapnel flying
across the room. A large amount of explosive material could be crammed into the bottom
of one of the fake army mess tins making this booby trap deadly for whoever was near it.
However, the booby traps employed by Nazis were not always meant to kill. Many of the devices
rigged to explode were contained in canisters that would send shrapnel everywhere. Any soldiers
in the vicinity would find themselves wounded or bleeding out due to gashes caused by jagged pieces
of metal. This would slow down entire squads and would result in the disruption of Allied plans.
Other booby traps were designed to cause as much damage as possible to
allied vehicles and stockpiles. They may not take out Allied soldiers,
but they would most certainly cause a loss of resources and disruption to supply lines.
For example, the motor oil bomb was a booby-trapped oil canister
that would have been hidden alongside other highly flammable materials.
The outside of this device would be practically indistinguishable from other oil canisters.
This meant that the Nazis could slip them into supply caches, and the booby-trapped
canister would make it all the way to an Allied base without being discovered.
Once there, the booby-trapped oil canister lid would inevitably be unscrewed during refueling
operations and detonate. This would cause a chain reaction as the flames caused by
the explosion ignited the other oil canisters around it. With one booby-trapped oil canister,
the Nazis might be able to take out an entire oil supply. It would also cause
immense damage to any vehicle around it, along with harming or killing any soldiers nearby.
A similar tactic used by the Nazis was deploying magnetic mines onto the hulls of Allied ships.
This bomb could be attached by a covert Nazi spy. A timer would be set, and the magnetic
mine would detonate when the ship was in the middle of the ocean, far away from any help.
Some of these devices were even fitted with a trigger that caused the mine to detonate
if it was discovered and detached from the hull prematurely. This meant that there was a booby
trap on the magnetic mine itself. The Nazis would stop at nothing to disrupt allied supply routes.
This brings us to the worst of the worst Nazi booby traps ever conceived.
It should come as no surprise that the minds that concocted a plan
for mass genocide would also come up with some insanely terrible booby-trapping techniques. But
you can’t even imagine how terrible some of these next booby traps actually were.
Allied soldiers walked through a town ravaged by the Nazis. The buildings are in ruin,
and there is very little shelter. The summer sun blazes as temperatures rise, and the parched
earth cracks under the soldiers’ feet. They have been fighting on and off with the Nazis for days,
but it seems like they have finally driven them out of the village. The Allies can now make
it their base of operations and launch another offensive deeper into Nazi-controlled territory.
What the Allied soldiers don’t know is that the Nazis left behind numerous booby traps;
it will be a miracle if any of them make it out of this town alive.
The Allies enter the town and find dead bodies that were left behind in the carnage.
A fallen Nazi soldier blocks the main road. He is lying facedown in the mud.
An Allied soldier walks up to the body to check it for any information and ammunition.
As he turns the body over, his eyes go wide. He turns to his squad and yells at them to run.
The body had been placed on top of a mine so that when it was moved, the explosive would detonate
and kill anyone in the vicinity. The blast erupts out of the ground, completely consuming
the soldier who moved the body. It wasn’t uncommon for Nazis to booby trap their own fallen comrades.
Rather than bringing their friend’s body home so that the family could mourn them, they were left
behind and rigged with explosives to take out any Allied soldier who came through the area.
This was a messed-up practice, but it gets even worse. Sometimes Nazis would kill an
Allied soldier and booby trap their body. Allied soldiers would be much more likely
to rush to the aid of someone on their side and would not be as hesitant to move the body
and try and identify who it was. When the body was repositioned, the booby trap would be triggered.
The explosion would kill or injure any Allied soldiers in the area.
The Nazis were ruthless with their booby-trapping tactics. They had no remorse for fallen soldiers
on either side. The most common booby traps that the Nazis employed used helmets and guns.
They knew that Allied soldiers would pick up these objects as they would be useful supplies to have
in battle. This meant Allied forces needed to be careful with everything they touched.
The Allied soldiers in the town watched in horror as their friend and fellow squadmate
was obliterated by the mine placed under the Nazi’s dead body. They shake their
heads in dismay at the brutality of the Nazi booby traps left behind for them.
They grab their squadmate's dog tags and carefully step over the body parts.
Crashed into a building is a Nazi jeep. There are rifles lined up along the back end of the vehicle.
This seems too good to be true—because it is. The captain of the squad signals for the rest
of his troops to hold their position as he approaches the weapons cache.
He looks it over but can’t tell if anything has been rigged to explode.
He steps away from the weapons and goes behind a crumbling brick wall. He picks up a rock and
tosses it at the weapons cache. The guns fall over onto the ground. Nothing happens.
The captain shrugs and begins to step out from behind the brick wall.
Suddenly a bomb detonates from under the jeep, blowing debris outwards.
None of the Allied soldiers are injured, but if they had been near the weapons,
the booby trap would have killed them all. They continue on through the town. At the far end of
the street is a large house that seems to be completely intact. The Allied soldiers
head towards the building. It’s getting late, and they need to seek shelter for the night.
As they proceed down the road, there are discarded supplies. In the middle of the
street lays a Nazi helmet. Without thinking, one of the soldiers kicks it with his foot
in disgust. As the helmet lifts off the ground, a pressure lever is released,
and a mine detonates from under the helmet. The soldier’s leg gets blown off. The medic rushes
over to help him. He shoots the soldier full of morphine, bandages the stump where his leg
once was, and rushes him towards the house to perform emergency surgery.
The squad runs to the nearby house. The man who reaches the door first pushes it open.
There is a click as a string attached to the door knob pulls the pin out of a grenade
sitting on the table right next to the door. The soldier thinks quickly,
grabs the grenade, and throws it out the window across the room. A moment later,
the grenade detonates, shattering the windows on the far side of the building.
Rigging doors to explode was a common Nazi booby trapping tactic. They tied tripwires
across doorways that were impossible to see and would pull the pins out of explosives.
They also used pressure plates to activate booby traps when stepped on by Allied forces.
This meant that any doorway or floorboard could potentially be a booby trap.
The rest of the squad rushes into the house and places the soldier that lost his leg on the table
in the middle of the room. The medic gets to work trying to save his squadmate. The captain
tells the rest of the men to fan out and search for any other booby traps. The building ends
up being more of a mansion than a regular-sized house, and there are a lot of rooms to go through.
The Allies go from room to room looking for trip wires and being careful where they step.
Unfortunately, the Nazis are ruthless and realized Allied soldiers had learned to be more careful
due to the countless booby traps they’ve come across. This led the Nazis to take
things a step further. They not only booby trap objects that the Allied soldiers might move,
but they also booby trap any obvious hiding places where they might seek safety.
One of the soldiers searching the house comes across a large bathroom. He peers inside and
sees medication sitting on the counter. He knows that these supplies could help save the life of
his squadmate downstairs. He searches the doorway for any trip wires. It seems clear,
so he proceeds into the bathroom. He searches high and low for any signs
of booby traps on the medical supplies. They seem to be free of any explosives.
The soldier starts gathering up the supplies when one of the bottles falls to the ground.
The lid pops off, and a small device pops out. It’s a trigger for a fuse. It’s a trap; the
medicine bottles are filled with explosives. The soldier screams in panic and drops the bottles. He
dives into the bathtub and places his hands over his head for protection. The bottles explode.
The soldier would have survived the blast within the bathtub if the bottles were the
only thing that was booby-trapped in the room. Unfortunately, the Nazis realized this. When
the Allied soldier dove into the tub, he knocked a bar of soap off the side of the rim. The Nazis had
known that someone who recognized the pill bottles were booby-trapped might seek shelter in the tub,
so they tied a wire to the bar of soap just in case it was disturbed.
When the soldier’s foot knocked the bar of soap over the side of the tub, it pulled a wire,
and an explosive placed under the porcelain bathtub detonated.
The soldier is cut in half from the force of the explosion as the bathtub splits in two.
The rest of the squad feels the tremors of the explosion and can only pray that one
of their friends hasn’t died to another Nazi booby trap, but they don’t hold their breath.
No one was safe from Nazi booby traps, and by the end of the war,
it seemed like anything that could be booby-trapped was. It was the Nazis'
last-ditch effort to cause as much chaos and mayhem as possible while they retreated back to
their homeland. The only limiting factor to what could be booby-trapped was their own imagination,
and as you can imagine, the minds of Nazi soldiers were very dark and very twisted.
Allied soldiers and even civilians needed to be very careful where they stepped and what they
moved as the Nazis retreated back to Germany and left a trail of booby traps behind them.
Just to put it in perspective, as Nazis continued to fight in World War II,
they knew that vital resources would be hard to come by for everyone. They even went as
far as to create an exploding thermos that would lure dehydrated Allied soldiers to their death.
The toils of war were exhausting, and sometimes water was hard to come by.
If a thermos with water was left behind, it would be picked up and drunk by whoever came across it.
Unfortunately, if you were not careful, you might find yourself with a deadly Nazi booby
trap in your hands. When the cap was taken off, and the person holding the thermos brought it up
to their lips for a sip of refreshing water, the explosive inside would be activated.
With the bomb being so close to the face, this booby trap was almost always deadly.
The sad part was that anyone could pick up the thermos, including innocent civilians.
This is how it went with Nazi booby traps. They were designed to cause suffering and
destruction while also disrupting Allied supply lines. However, they were also created to cause
fear and immobilize soldiers. The Nazis booby-trapped pretty much anything they
could get their hands on and didn’t care who ended up triggering them in the end.
Now watch “Most Insane Booby Traps Used During the
Vietnam War.” Or check out “World War 2 Didn’t End Like You Think It Did…”