It should stay in the UK! Sons’ anger after dad sells Hitler’s phone for £195k
A BATTERED wartime telephone said to be Adolf Hitler’s personal ‘hotline’ which sold for £195,000 last week could be a fake.
The British man who let go of the handset after 72 years in his family dismissed doubts about its authenticity – but revealed the sale only caused him anguish and regret.
Ranulf Rayner described how his decision to sell the red phone – given to his brigadier father by Russian soldiers – had caused ructions with his two sons, Ralph and Giles.
The phone, inscribed with Hitler’s name and a swastika, was tipped to sell for £400,000 at an auction in Maryland. But experts cast doubt on its authenticity and it sold for £195,000 to an unknown buyer.
Retired Army general Mr Rayner, 82, last night blamed ‘American organisations’ for ‘pouring doubt’ over the phone’s provenance. He added: ‘My two sons are somewhat upset with me firstly because they didn’t really want me to sell it. Secondly, if it was going to be sold they wanted it stay- ing in the UK preferably to a museum. Now it’s gone abroad and we don’t know who the new owner is and it’s a great shame.’
According to Mr Rayner, his father Sir Ralph, Tory MP between 1935 and 1955, was given the phone by his Russian counterparts after he entered Berlin following German surrender. Before his death in 1977, he passed it on to his son, who went to great lengths to establish its authenticity.
This included getting evidence from Hitler’s switchboard operator and searching the archives of Siemens, which made it.
But Frank Gnegel, of the Frankfurt Museum of Communications, said the peeling paint was a giveaway, as Hitler would have had a phone made from dyed plastic. Others who questioned the authenticity of the phone include The Telephone Museum, an American non-profit organisation.
Mr Rayner, from Dawlish, Devon, said: ‘Prior to the auction two American organisations poured doubt on its provenance... I just wish I hadn’t put it up for sale now.’