Bomb Found In German Man's Garden, But Turns Out To Be A Courgette

You know how it is. You go out of your back door with a cup of tea, fag in hand, it's morning, the sun is shining. Going to be a good weekend, isn't it? You look out at your garden, the flowers, the lawn, the hedge, and... wait a sec, is that.. is that a fucking bomb?

That's exactly what I imagine happened to one German pensioner yesterday morning in Bretten, a town near Karlsruhe in south-west Germany.

He noticed the object and assumed it was an unexploded bomb dropped by the British RAF or US Air Force during the Second World War.

A police spokesperson said: "The 81-year-old homeowner excitedly told the Bretten police station on the phone that he had found a World War II bomb in his garden."

But there was a twist in the story. See, things weren't all they seemed with the 'bomb'. In fact it wasn't a bomb at all, it was a 40cm long courgette.

Credit: Press handout

According to authorities, the 5kg (11-pound) courgette had probably been thrown over a hedge into the man's garden.

The spokesperson added: "As the police officers found during their on-site inspection, the actual bombshell object looked like a pumpkin plant about 40cm long, so the ordnance disposal service did not have to be called.

"The approximately five-pound Zucchino must have been thrown by an unknown person on the hedge in the garden of the ultimately relieved man, who took care of their disposal independently."

During World War II, military strategists believe that major victories could be won by attacking industrial and political infrastructure, rather than purely military targets.

An unexplored bomb found in in Bad Oldesloe, Germany back in June 2014. Credit: PA Images

Strategic bombing often involved bombing areas inhabited by civilians and some campaigns were deliberately designed to target civilian populations in order to terrorize and disrupt their usual activities.

Luckily for this man, it was not the case in this instance.