Nazi artefacts recovered from sunken U-boat on River Mersey

A hoard of Nazi artefacts including the only known copy of a memo announcing the death of Adolf Hitler have been uncovered from a sunken U-boat.

The artefacts, which also feature Nazi cigarettes, secret dispatches from Nazi higher-ups, a rare enigma machine and even condoms, were uncovered in the wreckage on Merseyside.Hundreds of items have now been uncovered from U-Boat 534, after being under wraps for 80 years, which forms part of Birkenhead's U-Boat Story attraction.

The U-boat was sunk by the RAF off the coast of a Danish island on Saturday, 5 May 1945.

It was raised from the seabed in 1993 and its contents were conserved, but were left untouched, until now.

The team at Big Heritage, which owns the U-Boat Story, recalled the mystery of U-boat 534, which, although based in the Baltic Sea, was found filled with tropical gear such as lightweight uniforms and guides to South America.

Founder of Big Heritage, Dean Paton, said: "When they raised the U-boat in the early Nineties the Danish team rapidly conserved and saved anything they could without then going through box by box to see what it was.

"Those boxes have been passed on and they've not been looked at, not been opened. "It's not just about the artefacts its about the story behind it that we're really piecing together for the first time."

Many of the artefacts will be on display at Liverpool's Western Approaches later this year.

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