Tumbleweed
Inactive
Apparently not a Hitler fan! 
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080705/en_nm/germany_hitler_head_dc
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 criticized 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 inapprop-
riate behavior.
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.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080705/en_nm/germany_hitler_head_dc
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 criticized 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 inapprop-
riate behavior.
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.
