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An Expert is Calling BS on Auctioned “Hitler Phone”

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The phone that was called history’s “most dangerous weapon” when it was auctioned off is now being called into question by an expert who says that it is “clearly a fake,” reports Newser.

Frank Gnegel, head of collections at the Frankfurt Museum for Communication, believes the phone to be a fake for multiple reasons. First off, the phone was made in Germany, but the handset was made in England, suggesting it was assembled there, he told a German paper Frankfurter Allgemeine, per Deutsche Welle. Second, he reportedly finds it very odd that the phone is painted red, and not constructed from red plastic. “Everything to do with Hitler was produced in a high-quality fashion; why should an engraving … simply be painted over?” he says.

Another point of contention for Gnegel is the fact that the phone had a rotary dial, “because he was always hand-connected in the telephone exchange.”

The phone was recently auctioned off for $243,000 and auction house owner Bill Panagopulos has rejected the “insulting” claims that it was a fake, says Newser.

Another man, Maj. Ranulf Rayner tells the BBC he is “extremely angry” about the claims. He says his father, Sir Ralph Rayner, was the first Allied officer to enter Hitler’s bunker and was given the phone by a Soviet officer. Rayner says he did his own research and was told by a former phone operator in Hitler’s bunker that the leader brought the phone everywhere during the last two years of the war.