Files reveal Nazi invasion plans
11:17, 26 August 2010
updated: 12:00, 26 August 2010
Newly declassified files have revealed Dover would have been the Nazis main starting point for an invasion - if they’d won the Battle of Britain.
The secret wartime documents - released today by the National Archives - show details of Operation Sea Lion as told by a German spy after the war.
According to Corporal Werner Janowski, storm troopers would have overrun the port and used it to ferry over enemy troops to invade Britain.
Adolf Hitler abandoned the plan after losing the Battle of Britain because his invasion force wouldn't have air protection.
But Cpl Janowski, who worked for the German Intelligence Service, the Abwehr, said if it had gone ahead Dover would have been bombed from the air before it was stormed by Germans.
Then he told MI5 interrogators: "Having effected a landing they would proceed along the cliffs to a point outside Dover where there were steps leading down to the beach and from this point they were to continue along the beach.
"They would regain the cliff head by means of some steps near Dover station and then pass alongside the railway station and take possession of three docks on which were gun emplacements.
"They would then signal to Luftwaffe that the docks were in their possession."
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