Dark History 122/365

In early May 1945 a British officer was sent forward by Field Marshal Montgomery to join with the Russian army entering Berlin and the Führerbunker. Amidst the chaos of the red army soldiers looting everything inside, the brigadier was presented with a grisly trophy: Hitler's hotline telephone. He brought it back to England and found it didn't work with the GPO... so it ended up in a bank vault, surfacing occasionally to remind us that we are all part of history whether horrifying or benign.

The British officer was Ralph Rayner, my grandfather.