A phone used by Adolf Hitler during World War Two was bought at auction for $243,000 dollars (€228,820).

Andreas Kornfeld of Alexander Historical Auctions in Chesapeake City, Maryland, said it sold on Sunday afternoon to a person who bid by phone.

The auction house does not disclose the names of buyers.

Bidding for the phone started at $100,000 (€94,104) dollars.

The dictator's personal phone was found in a Berlin bunker in 1945. The Siemens rotary telephone is embossed with a swastika and the eagle symbolic of the Third Reich.

Image: Patrick Semansky AP/Press Association Images

Alexander House dubbed the phone - which Hitler received from the Wehrmacht, Nazi Germany's armed forces - as "arguably the most destructive 'weapon' of all time, which sent millions to their deaths".

It said Hitler used it to give most of his orders during the last two years of World War II.

Russian officers gave the device to British Brigadier Sir Ralph Rayner during a tour of the bunker shortly after Germany's surrender.

Rayner's son, who inherited the phone, put it up for sale, its paint now peeling to reveal the original synthetic black resin surface.

Andreas Kornfeld of Alexander House told AFP news agency its estimates were based on a number of factors, including "rarity and uniqueness".

More than 1,000 items including the phone and a porcelain sculpture of an Alsatian dog for $24,300 (€22,880) were up for auction.