Fuhrer’s telephone sold at an auction

(Photo: Dennis Jarvis/Flickr.com)

A Siemens W38 model, which happened to be Adolf Hitler’s travel phone was sold at an auction for $243,000.

The phone was originally black in color and later on painted crimson red. A later version was engraved with the Fuhrer’s name and the Nazi insignia. It was found by Soviet soldiers in Hitler’s bunker and presented to British Brigadier Ralph Rayner as a gift when he visited the site in 1945.

This travel phone is believed to have been the communication device where countless execution orders have been delivered by the dictator himself. Hitler received the phone from the Wehrmacht, Nazi Germany’s Armed Forces.

In order to use the phone, one would have to rotate the handset in 60 degrees as it has a mechanism where it keeps the handset from falling off whilst traveling on any terrain.

Rayner’s grandson inherited the artifact and decided to sell it through the Alexander Historical Auctions who held the event.

Both the seller and the auction house really hoped that the item would go to a museum as it is still a seemingly ordinary yesteryear item from a controversial time, and it is obviously not an item for everyone.