BERLIN - A wax figure of Adolf Hitler had its head ripped off soon after the opening of a new branch of Madame Tussauds in Berlin on Saturday, police said.

A 41-year-old Berliner was arrested and faces charges of causing criminal damage and bodily harm, after he pushed away a security guard and a museum
official who tried to stop him, spokesman Uwe Kozelnik said.

"He wanted to protest against Hitler's figure being on show," Kozelnik said, adding that the model -- which cost around 200,000 euros (US$313,000) to make -- has been withdrawn from display for repairs.

Kizelnik said the man was questioned and later released.

The museum official, aged 32, suffered a slight leg injury in the scuffle.

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

In order not to give the impression that Hitler was in any way a figure to be revered, he appears as a broken man in a mock-up of his bunker just before final defeat at the end of World War II.

Ironically he is behind a table, with the aim of preventing visitors to the museum on Berlin's main historic avenue Unter den Linden from damaging the waxwork, or posing for photographs with it.

According to the online edition of Der Spiegel, the man shouted "No more war!" before attacking the waxwork.

The attacker was an unemployed former police officer, according to the daily Berliner Morgenspost.

The vandalism was not universally condemned. Local Social Democrat councillor Frank Zimmerman said: "It's more artistic to decapitate Hitler than it was to display him."

Meanwhile former 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 Tussauds but had put certain conditions on the way he was portrayed.

Kohl, who is convalescing after a fall in February, said: "It's not that serious, but it is inappropriate.

I am referring the matter to my lawyer."

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.

Berlin's Madame Tussauds is the eight branch of the London-based attraction in the world, and the third in Europe. - AFP/vm