A fragment of Adolf Hitler's marble desk is to cross the block at Reeman Dansie Auctioneers to raise funds for charity.
A portion of the Fuhrer's desk was liberated from the ruins of the Reich's Chancellery by Lord Balfour in 1945, who managed to sneak it out without alerting his Soviet minders.
 Hitler's desk can be seen at the far left |
After he arrived back in the UK, Balfour made it into three paperweights and presented one to Winston Churchill.
This example is valued at £300-500 ($389-648) ahead of the August 25 sale, although it could easily achieve more.
Auctioneer Lewis Rabett explained to the East Anglian Daily Times: "It is a very rare and unusual lot, and it is difficult to put a price on it. If there are two collectors who want it, it's worth as much as they think.
"It would not surprise me if we get more, but we have to start somewhere…
"It does not have Nazi insignia on it, so it may not attract interest in that sort of memorabilia, but market for militaria is very strong at the moment and the provenance adds more to it.
"The story is really what makes this special, being sneaked out of the Chancellery building right under the noses of Russian soldiers and whisked back to Britain, it is straight out of the pages of a Cold War spy novel."
A painting liberated from Hitler's headquarters in Bavaria is selling at Henry Aldridge & Son.
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