BERLIN: A wax figure of Adolf Hitler had its head ripped off soon after the opening of a new branch of Madame Tussauds in Berlin on Saturday, police said.

A 41-year-old Berliner had been arrested and faced charges of causing criminal damage and bodily harm, after he hit another visitor who tried to stop him, spokesman Uwe Kozelnik said.

“He wanted to protest against Hitler’s figure being on show,” Kozelnik said, adding that the model had been withdrawn from display for repairs.

The decision to portray the Nazi dictator among the 70 famous figures in German history in the museum has proved controversial in the country.

In order not to give the impression that Hitler was in any way a figure to be revered, he appears as a broken man in a mock-up of his bunker just before final defeat at the end of World War II.

Ironically he is behind a table, with the aim of preventing visitors to the museum in central Berlin from damaging the waxwork, or posing for photographs with it.

Meanwhile former post-war chancellor Helmut Kohl said he would be consulting his lawyer because he had never given permission for his own likeness to be on show.

Kohl, 78, told the daily Bild he had been contacted by the management of Madame Tussaud’s but had put certain conditions on the way he was portrayed.

Museum official Susanne Keller dismissed the complaint.

“The figures are sent from London. They do a good job. I assume that Mr Kohl gave his agreement — that’s why he’s here,” Bild quoted her as saying. —AFP