Hitler’s Personal Phone Is Now Up For Auction

If you have a passion for historical artifacts and some money to burn, then, you better rally up to get Adolf Hitler’s personal telephone.

The phone will be put under Alexander Historical Auctions in Maryland, USA, and is expected to go between $200,000 and $300,000. The historic phone was recovered by Brigadier Sir Ralph Rayner from Hitler’s bunker after his death. Ralph himself died in 1977 with his son Ranulf getting the inherited phone. According to the auction listing, Rayner was gifted the phone by Russian officers:

Very likely the first non-Soviet victor to enter the city, Rayner went to the Chancellery where Russian officers offered him a tour. On entering Hitler’s private quarters, Rayner was first offered Eva Braun’s telephone, but politely declined claiming that his favorite color was red. His Russian hosts were pleased to hand him a red telephone – the telephone offered here.

The description of the sale goes a whole lot gory after this,

It would be impossible to find a more impactful relic than the primary tool used by the most evil man in history to annihilate countless innocents, lay waste to hundreds of thousands of square miles of land, and in the end, destroy his own country and people…with effects that still menacingly reverberate today.

The auction house has also recorded a YouTube interview with the current owner of the phone, where he elaborates how Hitler used the phone “as his personal cellphone,” and took it with him wherever he went. The owner says that he is selling the phone because he can’t afford the insurance costs any longer, and hopes a museum will purchase it.

The owner of Alexander Historical Auctions, Bill Panagopulos, talked about how their auctions don’t attract any neo-Nazis who disturbingly honor Nazi memorabilia because “they’re simply too uneducated to understand it,” and they mostly want “their symbols” rather than the “original Nazi artifacts.” He also added that a large percentage of his customers are Jewish,

“because they understand the importance of preserving such artifacts.”