'Weapon of mass destruction': Hitler's phone is up for auction with bids to start at $130k

A US auction house is selling a telephone owned by Adolf Hitler.

The auction house, Alexander Historical Auctions, Maryland, say the phone is estimated at $200,000 (A$260,000) to $300,000 (A$391,000) and Panagopulos says bidding will start at $100,000 (A$130,000) this weekend.

Bill Panagopulos, president of the auction house since 1992, says occupying Russian officers gave the phone to Brigadie Sir Ralph Rayner, a British Conservative Party politician, during a visit to Hitler's Berlin bunker.

Brig. Sir Rayner's son is now selling the red phone, which bears a Nazi party symbol and Hitler's name engraved on the back.

Mr Panagopulos considers the phone a "weapon of mass destruction", noting that the orders Hitler gave over the phone took many lives.

He says the seller and auction house hope it ends up in a museum, where people who see it "really understand what extreme fascist thinking can bring about".

According to an online catalogue, the auction house says the handset of the phone must be rotated almost 60 degrees before it can be lifted out of its cradle.

This feature kept the handset from shaking loose while being transported. The phone was used in vehicles and trains as well as Hitler's field headquarters.