It has come to light that British spies looked at an…audacious way of derailing the man behind the German war machine – by giving him female sex hormones. Agents planned to smuggle doses of oestrogen into his food to make him less aggressive and more like his docile younger sister Paula, who worked as a secretary…

Spies working for the British were close enough to Hitler to have access to his food, said Professor Brian Ford, who discovered the plot.

He explained that oestrogen was chosen because it was tasteless and would have a slow and subtle effect, meaning it would pass Hitler’s food testers unnoticed. He went on: “There were agents who would be able to get it into his food – it would have been entirely possible…”

The oestrogen plan is outlined in a new book Prof Ford has written called Secret Weapons: Technology, Science And The Race To Win World War II.

He said the idea was just one of many strange attempts to bring a swifter end to the war. Other possibilities included dropping glue on Nazi troops in an attempt to stick them to the ground and disguising bombs in tins of fruit being imported to Germany. They also considered dropping boxes of poisonous snakes on enemy troops…

Anyone who has spent serious time with any military command on Planet Earth will immediately recognize the style of the plots in Professor Ford’s book. There is no branch of government – in any government – that can be as completely convinced of the dumbest Dodo ideas than the military.