Hitler's bunker phone to be sold at auction

[unbeldi]

I don't know about phones in the Fuhrerbunker but according to Hogan's Hero's, Stalag 13 had at least one AE34 in use! It only appears once in awhile on Klink's secretary's desk Frauline Hilga and later Frauline Helga.

Now I would pay a few hundred $ for a red 34!

Terry

I'll send you one, if you send me the check quickly. Oops, no checks.

[AE_Collector]

PayPal only?

Good quality paint?

[Phonesrfun]

Maybe this has been brought up before, but here is a thought.

If you are Hitler and his group, holed up in a concrete bunker below Berlin, it does not make sense that you would pick up the phone and get a dial tone, so a dial phone seems a bit much.  Even a PBX would have had to be staffed by someone, take up precious bunker space, and the risk of mechanical and electrical failure of a dial system would be great.  For sure, there probably were no functioning dial (or manual) central offices left in Berlin in those final days either. 

It does make sense to have very specific point-to-point magneto based communications that could be connected at the other end by field wire to field phones that could be moved from place to place during the heavy bombing.

[unbeldi]

Maybe this has been brought up before, but here is a thought.

If you are Hitler and his group, holed up in a concrete bunker below Berlin, it does not make sense that you would pick up the phone and get a dial tone, so a dial phone seems a bit much.  Even a PBX would have had to be staffed by someone, take up precious bunker space, and the risk of mechanical and electrical failure of a dial system would be great.  For sure, there probably were no functioning dial (or manual) central offices left in Berlin in those final days either. 

It does make sense to have very specific point-to-point magneto based communications that could be connected at the other end by field wire to field phones that could be moved from place to place during the heavy bombing.

Much of the telephone network in Berlin and other places was actually still operational after defeat, because they had built it under ground well protected from the destruction of bombardment.  Hitler had a personal telephone operator, who stayed very close to him at almost all times, including in the bunker. This person actually wrote a book about his life and experience with Hitler. He died some years ago.  The bunker had a separate communications room where this guy worked. For trips, he mentions that he took his switchboard with him, but I don't recall whether it is mentioned what kind it was.

[Phonesrfun]

Ah, OK.  I think I read something about the comm guy some years back but forgot.

[Fabius]

The commo man's name is Rochus Misch. Here is his information and his wartime picture.
He was a member of the Schutzstaffel (SS) and died in 2013.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochus_Misch

[Matilo Telephones]

Last saturday a serious German newspaper finally wrote a piece about the serious issues this phone has and that it is fake.

Here is a link to the article:

http://www.faz.net/aktuell/fachmann-sicher-das-hitler-telefon-ist-ganz-eindeutig-eine-faelschung-14893607.html

Interesting views on the matter by Frank Gnegel of the German museum of Telecommunication.

During the weekend it was picked up by several blogs and newspapers, among which the Daily Mail.

Now Fox news has confronted the auxtion house with the claims that this telephone is a fake.

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2017/02/27/hitler-phone-controversy-auction-house-denies-fake-claim.html

(Oh, and I am quoted in these articles too. :-)

I wonder what the buyer is going to do now.......

[TelePlay]

Hire an attorney and file a sizeable law suit?

[TelePlay]

Here is a link to the article:

http://www.faz.net/aktuell/fachmann-sicher-das-hitler-telefon-ist-ganz-eindeutig-eine-faelschung-14893607.html

Google Translate version of the above article:

===========================

The Hitler telephone is clearly a fake

Nearly 250,000 dollars have been paid by an unknown person for Adolf Hitler's telephone. Experts are convinced, however, that the story cannot be so true to the apparatus. Already with the listener it starts.

If in Germany someone knows with historical telephones, then Frank Gnegel. The Head of Department Collections at the Frankfurt Museum of Communication is responsible for one of the largest and most important telephone collections in Europe. 2000 standard appliances of the Reichspost, the Wuerttemberg Post and the Bavarian Post, which were used in the public telephone networks from 1881, are supplemented by private phones and devices from private branch offices. In addition, there is the first desk set from 1887 and the world's first telephone with dial.

A telephone that is not in the collection has changed the owner in the past days and made headlines: "In the United States was sold Adolf Hitler's old phone for 243,000 dollars," it was also on FAZ.NET. Gnegel now says, "It is clearly a fake." How does it come to this? "The actual telephone set was produced by Siemens & Halske, but the telephone receiver comes from an English telephone set. This was never produced. "His guess:" This must have been put together in England later. "

There was the apparatus for a long time: After Hitler's suicide and the fall of the "Third Reich" the telephone was allegedly found in the Berlin Führerbunker. According to the auction house, Russian soldiers first offered an Englishman the phone from Eva Braun. But because he wanted a red one, he had decided to use Hitler's phone, later inherited it to his son, who was now auctioning it.


"This claim is pretty stupid"

On the Internet, collectors reported very early on the authenticity of the phone. On the homepage of a Dutch restorer of historical phones, a corresponding text appeared on February 2nd. In a supplement dated February 16, the author reports that his friend, who works in a telephone museum, wrote a letter to the auction house. Did the experts convince the respondent? "No," he writes. "On the contrary, I am more convinced that this was not Hitler's telephone."

As far as the auction house is concerned, it can be read in the "Addenda" ("Nachzutragenes"): The dealer agrees that the listener does not fit the rest of the phone. This is due to the fact that it is a special construction, the listener can not fall from the phone during the transport. The Dutch expert writes: "This claim is rather stupid." There are models that are specially designed so that the listener is particularly secure. And on the contrary, you clearly see that the British listener does not fit particularly well on the German telephone.

The auction house also writes that an independent subsidiary of Siemens in Great Britain, which had worked closely with the mother company in Germany until the beginning of the Second World War, had designed the receiver. Gnegel says: "Why should a company in Great Britain construct an earpiece for Hitler before the war? Siemens would certainly have built a new telephone for Hitler. "

[TelePlay]

Now Fox news has confronted the auxtion house with the claims that this telephone is a fake.

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2017/02/27/hitler-phone-controversy-auction-house-denies-fake-claim.html

FoxNews Text of the above article, for posterity:

===========================


Hitler phone controversy: Auction house denies fake claim

A red phone described as the one Adolf Hitler used in his bunker was recently sold for $243,000 by a Maryland auction house. But was it actually the Fuhrer's phone?

The item comes with an incredible story: Made by Siemens, the phone— constructed of bakelite and painted red— came into the possession of a British officer named Brigadier Sir Ralph Rayner from the Soviets in early May, 1945, according to Alexander Historical Auctions. Sporting a swastika and Hitler's name, the phone has been called "arguably the most destructive 'weapon' of all time."
But while Bill Panagopulos, owner of Alexander Historical Auctions, vigorously defends the phone's provenance, some are now questioning the phone's legitimacy, claiming that the phone could be fake— or at least not Hitler's actual phone.

One of them is Frank Gnegel, of the Frankfurt Museum for Communication. "This is clearly a fake," he said, according to the German news site DW.com, which reported the expert's comments to the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Gnegel cast doubt on a few aspects of the phone, like its handset (which wasn't made in Germany) and the fact it was painted red.

"Siemens would have built a proper example from dyed plastic, instead of unprofessionally painting over a black telephone," he said.
Another is Arwin Schaddelee, a Dutch telephone collector and blogger who has written about the phone in detail. He's also noticed aspects about the item that he thinks are suspect, like its handset, the dial, and the cord. He pointed out that it is a "W38" phone, which he said means that the phone was made for supply to the German post office at the time.

Schaddelee said that ultimately he does think the phone is German, but doubts it belonged to Hitler.

"This telephone never belonged to Hitler, but the engraving with the name and swastika on the back may very well be original," he wrote in an email to Fox News. He added: "Somebody found a damaged W38 with that engraving which made it interesting enough to repair it and tell an exciting war story about it."

But Panagopulos told Fox News that they "absolutely" stand by the phone's authenticity.

"We were utterly, and remain utterly convinced, that it's 100 percent," he said.

He defended the phone's details, as well as Rayner, the British signals officer credited with originally retrieving the phone, saying the man was respectable and had no need for money—  and thus no incentive to peddle a fake.

But could it have been just a random Nazi phone, used in the bunker during that time period?

"Then there would have had to be an intent to deceive by Brigadier Rayner, a Member of Parliament, knighted by the Queen, [and] the highest British signals officer," Panagopulos said.

Panagopulos remains aggravated by the doubt cast on the phone, calling it preposterous.

"A lot of these guys are commenting on aspects of the phone that they know nothing about," he added.

[Jim Stettler]

http://www.matilo.eu/dial/english-hitlers-telephone-for-sale/?lang=en

[andre_janew]

My dad would probably say that this phone was a fake and that the Russians have the real one.  They knew that the British officer would go for the red phone, so they swapped it out for a fake.  They could've figured out how to get the parts they needed to create the fake.  They made one mistake and put the wrong handset on it.

[david@london]

I wonder what the buyer is going to do now.......

......perhaps he'll do what Hitler was said to have done when feeling particularly exasperated ......... fall on the floor and chew the carpet.

(in the 'Dad's Army' television series, Home Guard commander Captain Mainwaring devised a plan to send adolf a poisoned hearthrug.)

[dsk]

An interesting link: http://www.wehrmacht-awards.com/forums/showthread.php?t=902002
dsk

[TelePlay]

The July Issue of TCI's Singing Wires goes into this phone in detail. The conclusion is someone paid $243,000 for a fake.

Attached is the front page of that issue of Singing Wires and contains most of what was already said in this topic. The new and very interesting information about this phone is on pages 6 and 7 of the issue, available to members of TCI. You'll have to go there for the rest of the story.