The replica item is not the first piece of Nazi memorabilia to be auctioned by Launceston's Armitage Auctions, several other pieces have been sold through the auction house.

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Auctioneer Neil O'Brien said the company understood the items could be upsetting and apologised to those affected.

He said most buyers were after all war memorabilia, not just German, with no intention of spreading hate and anti-Semitism.

"We will continue to sell all types of war memorabilia whilst there is a demand and it is legal to sell," he said.

"People do not realise but many of the items we are discussing were brought back into the country by our servicemen who collected them during the war.

"I wish that we did not have to make a decision on morally what we should or should not be selling."

Hobart Hebrew Congregation president Jeff Schneider said trading the items was 'morally indefensible'.

"It desensitises people to the grisly realities of the Nazi regime by reducing racism, irrational hatred, and mass murder to the banality of a commercial transaction.

"We would prefer to see all commercial operators voluntarily stop this trade, rather than being compelled to do so. These items belong in museums, not on people's mantle-pieces," he said.

The display and sale of Nazi memorabilia is not illegal in Australia but Mr Schneider said it dishonoured the memory of the millions who died during the Nazi regime.

"[It] is a slap in the face to Australian ex-service personnel, Holocaust survivors and others who suffered under, and fought against, the base savagery of the Nazi regime," he said.

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