Man rips head off Hitler waxwork at Berlin's Madame Tussauds

A police spokesman said that the man, 41, had ripped off the head in protest at the exhibit.

The waxwork figure of a glum-looking Adolf Hitler in a mock bunker during the last days of his life had been 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.

After the waxwork's head was torn off, the bunker where it had been displayed remained empty, guarded by a museum employee

Dictator: The wax likeness of Adolf Hitler had caused an outcry

Madame Tussauds had been forced to move the model after the row broke out over its inclusion in its German branch. The waxwork  was isolated in a replica of the 'Fuhrer's' Berlin bunker, where he killed himself in 1945 at the end of the Second World War.

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. The original plan was to have the dictator placed near his nemesis Winston Churchill.

Jewish and anti-fascist groups had criticised the decision to display the model saying that it was included 'merely to generate money'.

Under German law, the display of Nazi regalia is illegal.

The Hitler figure had sat in a mock-up of the bunker where the mass-murderer killed himself at the end of World War Two

'Of course the figure will arouse interest but we hope people will realise he is part of an exhibition with a range of attractions,' Meike Schulze for the company promoting the Madame Tussauds in Berlin, had said before the opening.

'It will be a shame if he dominates everything.'

Ms Schulze defended the decision to put the Hitler figure on show, saying that market research had shown there was demand for its inclusion, as long as the portrayal  was sensitive.

Enemies: The Hitler model was placed near British prime minister Winston Churchill

About 25 workers spent four months on the waxwork, guided by more than 2,000  pictures and pieces of archive material and the model of the 'Fuhrer' in the London branch of Madame Tussauds.

To stop neo-Nazis from trying to pose with the figure for pictures, the bunker was roped off. Signs asked visitors to show 'respect for the millions of people who died in WW2'.

The wax Hitler was the latest in a gradual breaking down of taboos about him in  Germany more than six decades after the end of the war.

A 'human' Hitler was brought to the screen in the 2004 film 'The Downfall' about his end and two years ago a comedy about him was produced by a Jewish director.