Tussauds' Hitler wax figure sparks uproar in Germany
Last Updated: Saturday, May 31, 2008 | 11:41 AM ET
CBC News
Plans to display a figure of Adolf Hitler at a new branch of Madame Tussauds wax museum in Berlin has triggered an outcry in Germany with one Jewish group calling it a "Nazi Disneyland."
Natalie Ruoss, a museum spokeswoman, confirmed on Friday the world famous museum will feature a display of German historical figures.
Ruoss emphasized Hitler would not appear as a figure to be revered but rather as a "broken man" in a re-creation of his bunker just before the end of the Second World War.
She said he would be dressed shabbily, depicting the German leader as a defeated man as the Red Army entered Berlin shortly before his suicide on April 30, 1945.
Plans to recreate the last hours of Adolf Hitler, pictured here in 1939, at the new Madame Tussaud's wax museum in Berlin have sparked outcries of a Nazi Disneyland. (Associated Press)
"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," Ruoss said.
"Seeing as we are portraying the history of Germany, we could hardly have left him out ... we want to show the reality," she said.
Regardless, some Jewish organizations and politicians have voiced their concerns.
"It's like a Nazi Disneyland," Uwe Neumärker, the executive director of the Holocaust Memorial Association, told The Telegraph newspaper.
"It's tasteless. They didn't think about history, they just wanted to lure in the tourists."
The Berlin Tussauds is to open in July on Unter den Linden, not far from the Brandenburg Gate, which was once used as the headquarters of the Nazi regime. Hitler's bunker was nearby.
The museum has branches all over the world including New York, Las Vegas, London, Amsterdam and Shanghai.
Federal politicians in Germany expressed their dismay about the Hitler figure.
Michael Braun, from Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative CDU party, called it "tasteless beyond compare." Politicians form the Left-wing SPD and Green party also blasted the idea.
But not everyone was quick to criticize.
Stephen Kramer, general secretary of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said while some Holocaust survivors might find the exhibition offensive, he was not opposed as long as it was done properly.
Kramer said he hopes the exhibit might "demystify" Hitler.
"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."
