Story highlights The phone was auctioned Sunday by a Maryland auction house and was bought by phone bidder

The "mobile device of destruction" was recovered from Nazi leader's bunker by British officer

(CNN) Adolf Hitler's telephone was sold at auction in the United States on Sunday for $243,000. The winning bid was made by phone but the name of the bidder has not been released.

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.

The phone was recovered from the Fuhrerbunker in 1945 and has been kept in a box in an English country house ever since.

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.

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