Plan to mock up German war crimes

A DOCUMENT marked 'most secret' would have been a goldmine for German propaganda if it had emerged during the war. It discusses the possibility of the Allies 'manufacturing' atrocity photographs.

It proposed making them in Canada and faking German atrocities in Russia, suggesting it had slipped into the SOE Far East files by mistake. Dated 26 November 1941, its writer, codename G106 within the SOE office in London, concluded 'that existing pictures available from occupied territory are so indifferent in quality . . . that it would be useless to attempt to use these as a basis for fakes, and that . . . we should make new photographs using models, etc'.

There is no evidence in the file that the scheme was pursued, but several subsequent pages have been withheld.