http://sg.news.yahoo.com/ap/20080705/twl-germany-wax-hitler-1be00ca.html
BERLIN - 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 Saturday, police said.
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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, police said. They said he then ripped the head off the likeness of the Nazi dictator.
Police said they arrested the man and he told them he was demonstrating against the Hitler figure.
The man, who looked "absolutely normal," was only the second visitor to enter the museum, employee Stephan Koch 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, police spokesman Bernd Schodrowski said.
Koch said the damaged figure has been removed, but the museum remained open. Museum official Nathalie Ruoss said organizers would decide 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.
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, showing him as he would have looked shortly before his 1945 suicide.
Madame Tussauds produced a likeness of the Nazi leader hunched over a desk in a dimly lit bunker. The figure, unveiled to journalists 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 27,000 square feet (2,500 square meters), include German Chancellor Angela Merkel, communist East Germany's longtime leader, Erich Honecker, and psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud.
One of the wax VIPs, former Chancellor Helmut Kohl, was quoted by the Bild daily as saying that "I never gave my consent" to his own figure.
The newspaper reported that Kohl, who has been recovering from a fall, had requested that he be allowed to approve his portrayal _ and that its exhibition be delayed if necessary.
"This is all very frivolous and lacking in decency," Kohl said, according to Bild. "I am giving the matter to my lawyer."
Kohl's office confirmed the Bild report.
Bild quoted Susanne Keller, a manager at Madame Tussauds in Berlin, as saying that the museum gets its figures from London, and that "I assume Kohl gave his consent
30 minutes ago, I was just reading the 'weekend Today' newspaper on the article about this musem with the Hitler figure, without realising that his head is already gone by then! Lol.