The telephone Adolf Hitler used to bark out orders that led to the deaths of millions is apparently worth $243,000 to someone. Hitler's chipped red phone, which is engraved on the backside with the Fuhrer's name and a swastika, sold to an unnamed bidder who made his or her bid by phone in Sunday's auction by Alexander Historical Auctions in Chesapeake City, Maryland, reports CNN. The BBC reports the starting bid for what the auction house called "Hitler's mobile device of destruction" and "arguably the most destructive 'weapon' of all time" was $100,000.
Newser previously reported on the phone's provenance: Hitler is said to have used it during the war's final two years. Shortly after the Allied victory, a British officer removed the phone from the Fuhrerbunker, his son Ranulf Rayner, 82, previously told CNN. "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." The auction house explains that as the Russians gave Rayner's father, Ralph, a tour of the bunker, they offered him the black phone used by Hitler's wife, Eva Braun. He responded that his favorite color was red, and so they handed him Hitler's phone instead. His other souvenir, a porcelain Alsatian dog that was "almost certainly personally presented to Hitler by Heinrich Himmler," sold for $24,300 to a different bidder. (More Adolf Hitler stories.)
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