A 1935 edition of Mein Kampf signed by Adolf Hitler has sold for £17,000 ($21,664), a vast increase on its £1,500 ($1,911) estimate.

The lot crossed the block at Silverwoods in Clitheroe, Lancashire earlier today.

Hitler's Mein Kampf was the foundational text of the Nazi party 

The book was signed for BBC journalist Peter Cadogan on a trip to Munich in the years leading up to the outbreak of world war two.

Hitler very rarely signed anything. He did so this time on the request of Unity Mitford, the English socialite and Nazi, whom Cadogan also knew.

Unity had been a committed fascist since she was a child.

She attended the Nuremburg Rallies in 1933 and was blown away by the spectacle. In 1934 she moved to Munich, where she soon became a member of Hitler’s inner circle.

She proved her loyalty with a vicious diatribe against the Jews in a 1936 edition of the official Nazi paper Der Sturmer. When the UK declared war against Germany, she shot herself in Munich’s English Garden.

She survived the attempt and was returned to the UK, but was an invalid until her death in 1948.

Auctioneer James Thompson explained to the BBC: "Hitler didn't sign books. It wasn't something he did.

“…You can almost see him putting his eyes to the ceiling.”

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