BERLIN (AFP-EJP)---A man tore off the wax head of an effigy of Adolf Hitler in Berlin on Saturday, soon after the new branch of the Madame Tussaud's waxwork museum chain opened for the first time to the public.

A 41-year-old Berliner had been arrested and faced charges of causing criminal damage and bodily harm, after he hit another visitor who tried to stop him, police spokesman Uwe Kozelnik said.

"He wanted to protest against Hitler's figure being on show," Kozelnik said, adding that the model had been withdrawn from display for repairs.

The decision to portray the Nazi dictator among the 70 famous figures in German history in the museum has proved controversial in the country.

Responding to suggestions that it might become a site of pilgrimage for neo-Nazis, he appears as a broken man in a mock-up of his bunker just before final defeat at the end of World War II.

Related story

New Madame Tussauds in Berlin, Hitler included

ronically he is behind a table, with the aim of preventing visitors to the museum in central Berlin from damaging the waxwork, or posing for photographs with it.

Meanwhile former post-war chancellor Helmut Kohl said he would be consulting his lawyer because he had never given permission for his own likeness to be on show.

Kohl, 78, told the daily Bild he had been contacted by the management of Madame Tussaud's but had put certain conditions on the way he was portrayed.

Museum official Susanne Keller dismissed the complaint.

"The figures are sent from London. They do a good job. I assume that Mr Kohl gave his agreement -- that's why he's here," Bild quoted her as saying.