A small German furniture store chain has apologised after an apparent supplier error led to it selling coffee mugs with Adolf Hitler's face printed on them.

Zurbrueggen received 5,000 of the offending cups, of which 175 were sold before anyone reported a problem.

The original design of the mugs bore an English poem surrounded by a soft rose pattern.

However, also clearly visible on the mistaken batch was an imprint of a Nazi-era stamp containing the former dictator's face and a swastika.

Local paper the Neue Westfälische Post said one woman who bought the mug "could not believe her eyes" when she noticed the Führer's face at the breakfast table.

The imprints were ordered from a Chinese trade fair, and were the result of a mistake from the supplier, Zurbrueggen's CEO claims.

The furniture chain says it wants to take the cups "out of circulation" and has had the unsold 4,825 destroyed.

He is now offering a 20-euro (£16.50) voucher to anyone who returns one of the remaining mugs in circulation - quite a mark-up on the original retail price of 1.99 euro (£1.65).

However, the Neue Westfälische Post reports that a museum, the House of History in Bonn, "has great interest in the in the acquisition of the so-called Hitler cups".

Read: Hitler's wife had 'jewish ancestry', documentary claims