BERLIN An unnamed Russian billionaire has bought a Mercedes used by Adolf Hitler for several million euros, a German newspaper report said on Monday.

Classic car dealer Michael Froehlich told the Cologne-based Express daily that he had been contacted by a representative of the billionaire asking him to find out what had happened to the dark blue open-top Mercedes 770K.

After weeks of research, he discovered it was sold in Austria after World War II, then went to a classic car museum in Las Vegas before belonging to a Bavarian beer magnate, whose widow sold it after his death in 2008.

“On Wednesday, I got a tip off on whom it had been sold to,” Froehlich said.

“It belonged to a private collector and was in a garage in Bielefeld (in western Germany).

He had six of these very rare models,” he told the paper.

Froehlich said he had verified the vehicles authenticity using the vehicles original documents and old photos.

“Even the number plate was correct 1A 148461,” he said. “I checked with prosecutors ... whether the deal was illegal. They raised no objections, as long as there were no Nazi symbols visible.”—AFP