SCOTTISH nationalists were plotting an alliance with Nazi Germany in 1943 as a means of winning independence, it was revealed in ''most secret'' MI6 papers released yesterday.
The plan envisaged Scotland being spared further German bombing attacks like the Clydebank blitz two years earlier.
It was additionally suggested that weapons and other ordnance should be sent to Scotland from Ireland to support a German invasion of southern England. This would enable nationalists to take advantage of panic south of the border to proclaim a Scottish republic.
In advance of that, it was proposed that Germany should instigate ''Lord Haw Haw''-type broadcasts targeting Scotland.
An important first stage would be to transfer Scottish prisoners- of-war to camps separate from other allied PoWs.
A memorandum from the Scottish independence movement outlining the master plan was received at the German legation in Dublin from an unknown source, the MI6 papers report.
It added bones to an initial approach to the legation by Scottish nationalists in 1940.
By the time the detailed Scottish nationalist proposals were received, Hitler considered the Dublin legation a key listening post keeping a watch on UK military activities in the build-up to a possible allied invasion.
Dr Eduard Hempel, head of the legation, was becoming bolder in what MI6 described as ''extra diplomatic activities,'' but what in reality were acts little removed from espionage.
In particular, he had close contacts with the IRA in Northern Ireland, which was anxious to join in the fight against the British by committing large-scale acts of sabotage. Three members wanted to be taken to Germany to discuss how this could best be co-ordinated.
The view of the legation's first minister was that sabotage was best-controlled by Germany rather than the IRA going it alone.
However, unknown to the Germans, encrypted cables from Dublin as well as other legations throughout the world were being routinely intercepted by British intelligence. MI6 prepared fortnightly reports on the traffic between Dublin and Berlin.
It was these intercepts that picked up the proposal for a German-Scottish alliance.
This, Kempel's secret message to Berlin stated, was intended as a weapon in the fight of ''National Christian socialism against the gross materialism of the capitalistic-communist union of England, Americans, Bolsheviks, etc,'' MI6 reported.
In their proposal, the nationalists suggested that Germany should call an ''international congress of liberation'' at which Scotland should be represented; the despatch to Germany of an Irish republican versed in the Scottish independence movement; and the foundation of a Celtic union.
MI6 reported that the Scottish nationalist movement was being studied by MI5.
''It is their view that, while individual members are mischievous and potentially dangerous, the organisation itself, albeit full of sound and fury, is of little consequence.''
The wording of the document received at the German legation suggested that the authors had been in collaboration with Gerald Cunningham, founder of the Irish fascist movement.
A suspicious Nazi foreign ministry in Berlin cabled Hempel: ''Refrain from giving effect in any way whatever to the suggestion of the Scottish Republican Brotherhood . . . save he explored the possibility of utilising the movement as a source of information about what is going on in England.''
As a consequence, Hempel was later able to report that an oil pipeline had been laid in the Caledonian Canal.
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