The 90-year-old woman, whose name is unknown, arrived holding with what she thought was an old military relic she wanted help disposing of.
However, an emergency alarm was sounded by police when they realised the device was still live and could explode at any second.
The woman explained she had owned the grenade for 75 years and ha kept the device in her house the whole time.
She said: “My husband brought the grenade back from the war in 1943.
“It has been sitting on a desk at home ever since.”
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The pensioner decided to get rid of the object following the death of her husband.
An evacuation and a cordon of nearby roads were immediately put in place defuse bomb disposal experts defused the dangerous explosive.
The unusual occurrence happened in the western German city of Leverkusen.
There have been a number of instances in the past when explosive devices have been kept as household items, with their owners unaware of the dangers.
Last year police in the UK were handed a bomb that had been used as a doorstop for 40 years.
The unnamed individual delivered the shell to officers at Heavitree police station in Exeter on Sunday as part of a force-wide weapons amnesty.
A police spokesperson said: “A member of the public arrived at the Heavitree Road police station in Exeter with an unexploded bomb in a carrier bag.
“The projectile was probably from the 1950s and it is being destroyed in a controlled explosion.”
Royal Navy bomb disposal experts were called to the station – the man claimed he used the artillery shell as a doorstop for 40 years but wanted to get rid of it as it was rusty.
On that occasion, police decided not to evacuate the building.
The device was later found to be deactivated.