Churchill wanted death by electric chair for Hitler

LONDON - A side of Winston Churchill's character rarely seen - that of the vengeful, rather than magnanimous, war leader - has emerged in hitherto secret Government documents. They reveal that he wanted to send Adolf Hitler to the electric chair, had he been captured, and was also content to see Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi starve to death during a 1943 hunger strike.

The Prime Minister, talking in a War Cabinet meeting in July 1942, described Hitler as "the mainspring of evil" and, in his fashion, jokingly suggested leasing an electric chair - known as "Old Sparky" - from the Americans to execute him like "a gangster" if and when he was caught.

He did not want Hitler to have a public stage to plead his case.

The new insight into Churchill's bitter hatred for Hitler comes in a set of classified Cabinet Office notebooks, released by the National Archives last week. The notes were taken by the Deputy Cabinet Secretary Sir Norman Brook during some of the most critical meetings of the war.

- INDEPENDENT