BERLIN — A visitor decapitated a wax figure of Adolf Hitler minutes after the Berlin branch of Madame Tussauds opened its doors for the first time Saturday.
The 41-year old Berliner jumped over a rope meant to distance visitors from the sculpture and ripped the head off the likeness of the Nazi leader, police spokesman Bernhard Schodrowski said. A museum employee was injured slightly in the incident
Police arrested the man, who apparently was making a protest, on suspicion of causing bodily injury and damage to property.
After the incident, the museum remained open but the beheaded Hitler sculpture was removed.
In recent weeks, controversy had erupted over whether to exhibit the Hitler sculpture at the museum, only 200 yards from the Brandenburg Gate in the center of historic Berlin.
Mayor Klaus Wowereit had urged the museum to consider carefully whether to include the dictator’s likeness and, if they did, to be careful how they presented it.
Museum spokeswoman Natalie Ruoss said: “It was our objective to show Hitler not in a glorifying way.” In the exhibit, Hitler was shown in a scene of late 1944 sitting at a desk in a bunker under a map of Europe.
Unlike other figures in the museum, Ruoss said, visitors were not allowed to touch or photograph Hitler’s figure, to avoid the possibility of someone posing with the image for a photo.
A visitor who left the exhibition after the incident said: “This will happen again and again.”
Ruoss told the Berlin radio station Info-Radio it was not yet clear if the Hitler figure would return to the exhibition.
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