Hitler's personal phone goes under the hammer
A phone owned by Adolf Hitler is being auctioned in Maryland with bids starting at $100,000. The phone, crimson coloured rusty device with Hitler's name engraved on it was recovered by Russian army officers from the Nazi leader's Berlin bunker in 1945 shortly after Germany surrendered. Auction house officials have referred to Hitler's phone as a "weapon of mass destruction".
Can fetch three times starting bid
Auction house officials believe given its "rarity and uniqueness", the phone can fetch between $200,000 and $300,000. Officials hope the phone finds its way to a museum where people can see what "extreme fascist thinking can bring about."
Why is Hitler's phone 'weapon of mass destruction'?
Hitler's 'travel phone' was transported with him and was used in vehicles, trains and at Hitler's eastern headquarters. During last two years of World War-II, it's believed Hitler used the phone to give most of his orders that resulted in the death of countless lives. Reportedly, last call was made to his aides to burn his apartment after he and his wife committed suicide.
Recovering this iconic war memorabilia
Hitler received a Bakelite rotary phone from Wehrmacht, Nazi Germany's military force. Phone was embossed with his name, a swastika and eagle which was symbolic of the Third Reich. Shortly after Germany's surrender, Russian officers touring Hitler's bunker found the phone on his bedside table and gifted it to British Brigadier Sir Ralph Rayner. Rayner's son who inherited the phone is now auctioning it.
A 'sinister' porcelain dog on auction too
The Maryland auction house is putting another item from Hitler's headquarters on the block. During the tour of Nazi leader's bunker, Brigadier Rayner picked up another item: a porcelain statute of a German Shepherd which was made at a concentration camp in Dachau. The starting bid for the porcelain dog is $12,000: Rayner's son described it as "just as sinister as the phone."
World needs to remember 'horrors of war'
Auction houses Sotheby's and Christie's don't deal in Nazi memorabilia as a policy and Hitler's phone was also rejected by British Museums. Rayner said, "I don't want them to be hidden again. I want them to remind the world of horrors of war."
