How Hitler’s final telephone ended up in an Ashland, KY, museum

By: Noah Hickman

Leading up to the end of WW2, the Allies put in place a reparations committee which would make both East and West Germany pay war reparations.

President Harry Truman called a man by the name of Paul G. Blazer (President of Ashland Oil & Refining Company) and offered one of his employees, J. Howard Marshall, the position of General Counsel for the American Delegation of the Reparation Commission. 


Accepting the position, Marshall traveled to Europe and one of the stops he made was to Berlin. At one point, he visited Hitler’s bunker (this was after Hitler and his one-day wife committed suicide).


He would find a lamp and a bedside telephone. But, the one obstacle was that the bunker was under Soviet control and had been ransacked.


Determined, Marshall gave one of the guards two packs of “look the other way” cigarettes so he could collect his treasures. 


The lamp would end up being a personal possession of Marshall’s for an unknown period of time. Marshall passed away in 1995, and nobody knows for certain where the lamp is. Some speculate that it is still with the Marshall family.


On the other hand, Marshall gave the telephone to his boss because “he never worked with anyone who telephoned more or more effectively than Paul Blazer.” The phone stayed in the Blazer family for decades until the phone was given to the Highlands Museum in Ashland, KY, in 1985.

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