Madame Tussaud's returns wax Hitler to Berlin

[September 15, 2008]  BERLIN (AP) -- Adolf Hitler has returned to Berlin.

Madame Tussaud's said Saturday it had returned a wax figure of the Nazi dictator to its newly opened Berlin branch weeks after the statue was beheaded by a 41-year-old German.

Hitler's figure can be viewed sitting at a desk in a replica of his bunker, Madame Tussaud's, the British waxworks maker, said. Hitler committed suicide in the bunker in 1945 as the Red Army converged on Berlin.

The Berlin branch said it does not allow visitors to enter the replica of the bunker, so that the figure is protected.

Madame Tussaud's has defended its display of the Hitler figure in Berlin as "a legitimate part of our show" because he "stands for an important part of German history."

The presence of the Nazi dictator's likeness in the new museum led to criticism in German media before the branch's opening in July.

[Associated Press]

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