Thread: Hitler Lost His Head....

Man rips head from Hitler wax figure in Berlin

BERLIN (Reuters) - A man tore the head from a controversial waxwork figure of Adolf Hitler on the opening day of Berlin's Madame Tussauds museum on Saturday, police said.

Just minutes after the museum opened, the 41-year-old German man pushed aside two security men guarding the exhibit.

"Then he went over to the figure and ripped off the head," a police spokesman said.

The man tore off the head in protest at the exhibit, the spokesman added. The police were alerted and arrested the man, who did not resist. He was being investigated for assault and damaging property.

The waxwork figure of a glum-looking Adolf Hitler in a mock bunker during the last days of his life was criticised as being in bad taste. A media preview of the new branch of Madame Tussauds on Thursday was overshadowed by a row over the exhibit.

Critics said it was inappropriate to display the Nazi dictator, who started World War Two and ordered the extermination of Europe's Jews, in a museum alongside celebrities, pop stars, world statesmen and sporting heroes.

Dressed in a grey suit, the figure of Hitler gazed downwards with a despondent stare, his arm outstretched on a large wooden table with a map of Europe on the wall of his gloomy bunker.

About 25 workers spent about four months on the waxwork, using more than 2,000 pictures and pieces of archive material and also guided by a model of the "Fuehrer" in the London branch of Madame Tussauds where it is standing upright.

It is illegal in Germany to show Nazi symbols and art glorifying Hitler and the exhibit was cordoned off to stop visitors posing with him.

Unobtrusive signs asked visitors to refrain from taking photos or posing with Hitler "out of respect for the millions of people who died during World War Two". Camera surveillance and museum officials were meant to stop inappropriate behaviour.

Institutions such as the foundation for Germany's central Holocaust memorial site condemned the idea of the exhibit as tasteless, saying it had been included to generate business.

The wax figure is the latest in a gradual breaking down of taboos about Hitler in Germany more than 60 years after the end of the war and the Holocaust in which some six million Jews were killed.

The 2004 film "Downfall" provoked controversy as it portrayed the leader in a human light during the last days of his life and last year a satire about Hitler by Swiss-born Jewish director Dani Levy was released in Germany.

10 months after the event ... and the journalist trots out exactly the same text as the article above...

Man fined for beheading wax Hitler - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

A German court has fined an unemployed man 900 euros ($1,600) for knocking the head off a waxwork figure of Adolf Hitler in a Berlin museum.

Minutes after the Madame Tussauds museum opened in the German capital last July, the 42-year-old pushed past security staff and ripped off its head.

The man, an ex-policeman, said he found it inappropriate to display an exhibit showing the Nazi leader only some 500 metres from Berlin's Holocaust memorial.

The waxwork of a glum-looking Hitler in a mock bunker stirred debate in Germany even before it went on display.

Critics argued it was tasteless to display a replica of the man who unleashed World War II and ordered the extermination of Europe's Jews.

Madame Tussauds said the museum avoided politics, arguing Hitler stood for a significant part of German history and his waxwork therefore had a legitimate part in the exhibition.

The restored figure was returned to the museum in September and is now displayed behind a glass wall.

About 25 workers spent about four months on the original waxwork, using more than 2,000 pictures and pieces of archive material and also guided by a model of the Fuehrer in the London branch of Madame Tussauds.

The wax figure has been cited as the latest in a gradual breaking down of taboos about Hitler in Germany, more than 60 years after the end of the war and the Holocaust in which six million Jews died.

The 2004 film Downfall provoked controversy as it portrayed the leader in a human light during the last days of his life.

In 2007, a satire about Hitler by Swiss-born Jewish director Dani Levy was released in Germany.

It is illegal in Germany to show Nazi symbols and art glorifying Hitler.