The Nazis plotted to poison chocolate, sugar and Nescafe coffee as part of a post-World War II sabotage operation, previously secret MI5 files reveal.

German spies were equipped with everything from poisoned pills disguised as aspirin to cigarette lighters that gave off lethal fumes when ignited.

And female agents were supplied with “microbe” weapons hidden in handbag mirrors, which were to be used against top-ranking officials in Allied-occupied territory.

British commanders were so worried about the danger of everyday items being poisoned that they recommended banning their troops from eating German food and smoking German cigarettes as they advanced through Germany in 1945.

MI5 even arranged for a bar of chocolate and a tin of Nescafe seized from a captured saboteur to be tested for poison, documents released by The National Archives in Kew, west London, show.

The Nazi leadership also planned to plant sleeper agents around the world after the war with the aim of later provoking global unrest and creating a “Fourth Reich”, the newly-declassified files disclose.

A French collaborator arrested in Italy in 1945 told his interrogators that “ample funds” had been transferred to South America and “trustworthy key men” had been sent to live in Spain and Switzerland.

Olivier Mordrelle, a leader of the separatist movement in Brittany, northern France, was sentenced to death in his absence in 1940 after being found to be in the pay of the Germans.

He returned to his country after Hitler’s invasion and performed a number of roles for the occupiers, culminating in being appointed French representative for post-war activities by the Nazi party’s intelligence agency, the Sicherheitsdienst.