Saturday, July 5, 2008

Today in Berlin

A man has been arrested after tearing the head off a wax figure of Adolf Hitler at a newly opened branch of Madame Tussauds in Berlin.
The 41-year-old man was held after attacking the waxwork, only hours after the attraction opened on Saturday July 5th.
The inclusion of Hitler in the exhibition has aroused controversy in a country where Nazi symbols are banned.
But the exhibition's organisers said they could hardly depict German history without portraying Hitler.
They said the waxwork depicted Hitler in the hours before his suicide, a defeated figure slumped in his bunker as the Red Army reached Berlin.
The Fuhrer was positioned behind a table, which was supposed to prevent visitors posing with the statue - or damaging it.
Natalie Ruoss, of Madame Tussauds, said: "We did surveys while we were planning the exhibition on the street with Berliners and with tourists, and the result was quite clear that Hitler is one of the figures that they want to see.
"Seeing as we are portraying the history of Germany we could hardly have left him out... we want to show the reality."

The attacker was only the second visitor to enter the exhibition, according to one report.

"Erasing him from history is not going to bring the perished ones back, it's not going to heal the damage that he did, the crimes that he did. That would be counter-productive," he said.
The waxwork museum also includes other German historical figures like Otto von Bismarck, Karl Marx, Beethoven, Bach and Einstein.

No comments: