Hitler Decapitated

This no doubt will really upset all his liberal left admirers.

A man has torn the head from a controversial waxwork figure of Adolf Hitler on the opening day of Berlin's Madame Tussauds museum today.

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.

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.

Maybe they can make up for it and put a Che Guevara dummy in there instead.