Story highlights Hitler's "mobile device of destruction" recovered from Nazi leader's bunker by British officer

The officer's son, Ranulf Rayner, wants the phone to be bought by a museum

London (CNN) Adolf Hitler's telephone, recovered from the Fuhrerbunker and kept in a box at an English country house since 1945, will be sold at auction in the United States later this month.

The phone was presented to Hitler by the Wehrmacht and was used by the Nazi leader to issue most of his commands during the last two years of World War II, according to a description in the catalog for Alexander Historical Auctions in Maryland.

Made by Siemens as a black Bakelite phone, it was later painted red and engraved with Hitler's name and a swastika, the catalog says.

The auction house describes the telephone as "Hitler's mobile device of destruction" and called it "arguably the most destructive 'weapon' of all time, which sent millions to their deaths around the world."

Hitler's name is engraved on the back of the phone, along with an eagle and swastika.

British officer Ralph Rayner recovered the phone from Hitler's bunker while visiting Berlin on the orders of Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery just a few days after the end of the war, according to Rayner's personal account and shipping documents from that time period, according to the auction house.

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