Man tore head of Adolf Hitler wax figure at Madame Tussauds museum

A man tore the head off an Adolf Hitler wax figure at Madame Tussauds' new branch in Berlin in what appeared to be a symbolic protest on the museum's opening day on Saturday, officials said.

Police said the 41-year-old man shoved aside two museum employees, one of whom was assigned to protect the exhibit, and slightly injured one of them. He then ripped the head off the likeness of the Nazi dictator. "Two security guards of the exhibition tried to stop the attacker, but the man pushed both security guards away, so he could destroy the head of the figure", a police spokesman told German broadcaster RTL.

Police said they arrested the man and he told them he was protesting against the Hitler figure. The man was only the second visitor to enter the museum, an employee said, adding that he and a colleague had tried unsuccessfully to prevent the assailant from jumping over a table in front of the figure and damaging the effigy.

The Berlin resident now faces an investigation on suspicion of causing damage to property and bodily harm, a police spokesman said. He said the damaged figure has been removed for now, but the museum remained open. A museum official said organizers would decide on Monday what to do about the figure.

The presence of the Nazi dictator's likeness in the new museum led to criticism in German media over recent weeks, but defenders of the plan argued Hitler's role in German history could not be ignored. "He belongs to history, he has his place here, I think. Tearing off his head is not the right way to deal with history," said a visitor at the exhibition. "Hitler is a person who belongs to the history of Germany. After such a long time, we as Germans should be mature enough to accept it and live with that history", added another visitor.

Last month, Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit urged the museum to consider carefully whether to include Hitler and, if it did, to ensure that he not be shown as a "cult figure". The museum, which is near the German capital's Brandenburg Gate, pledged to portray Hitler without glorifying him, as he would have looked shortly before his 1945 suicide.

It produced a likeness of the Nazi leader hunched over a desk in a dimly lit bunker. The figure, unveiled to journalists on Thursday, showed Hitler, with deep lines furrowing his forehead, sitting beneath a map of Europe on the wall, monitoring the advance of allied troops from the east and west.

Museum officials offered assurances that visitors would not be able to touch, photograph or pose with the wax Hitler - unlike the rest of the 75 figures in the new collection.

Prominent figures in the two-story exhibition, which spreads out over nearly 27-thousand square feet (2,500 square meters), include German Chancellor Angela Merkel, communist East Germany's longtime leader, Erich Honecker and Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud.