A telephone that belonged to Adolf Hitler sold at auction for $243,000 to an anonymous bidder on Sunday, according to the auction house responsible for its sale.<\/p>\n
The Siemens phone, which bears Hitler\u2019s name and a swastika, is \u201carguably the most destructive weapon of all time, which sent millions to their deaths\u201d according to a catalog description by Alexander Historical Auctions in Maryland.<\/p>\n
The item was given as a gift to British officer Sir Ralph Rayner, who handed it down to his son Ranulf Rayner after his death, according to a statement from the auction house\u2019s catalog.<\/p>\n
On May 5, 1945, a day after Germans surrendered, Rayner was ordered by Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery to make contact with the Russians in Berlin, according to the auction house.<\/p>\n
The Russians offered Rayner a telephone that belonged to Eva Braun, Hitler’s bride, but he joked that he preferred red.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis Russian hosts were pleased to hand him a red telephone,\u201d the auction house said in the catalog. \u201cThe telephone offered here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rayner told CNN that his father brought the phone and a dog figurine, which was made by slave laborers at Dachau concentration camp, back to their home in Devon in western England.<\/p>\n
“My father didn’t see it as a relic of Hitler’s glory days, more a battered remnant of his defeat, a sort of war trophy,” Rayner told CNN. “He never thought it would become an important artifact.”<\/p>\n
The dog figurine sold for $24,300.<\/p>\n
Rayner told CNN he hoped the objects would be purchased by a museum.<\/p>\n
“I don’t want them to be hidden again,” he said. “I want them to remind the world of the horrors of war.”<\/p>\n\n
A telephone that belonged to Adolf Hitler sold at auction for $243,000 to an anonymous bidder on Sunday, according to the auction house responsible for its sale. The Siemens phone, which bears Hitler\u2019s name and a swastika, is \u201carguably the most destructive weapon of all time, which sent millions to their deaths\u201d according to a catalog …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13938,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[38],"tags":[1494,1493],"yoast_head":"\n