GERMANY:ONCE AGAIN, the Führer is causing a furore. Berliners are up in arms about British plans for Adolf Hitler's return to the German capital - as a waxwork.
Some 63 years after the Nazi dictator "fell in battle", he is the big star of Madame Tussauds's new Berlin branch, around the corner from the notorious Führerbunker.
Unlike the London Hitler, who lives in the Chamber of Horrors, the Berlin Hitler will be in his own private hell: between Winston Churchill and Cabaret star Liza Minnelli.
Christian Democrat (CDU) politician Michael Braun called Hitler's comeback "an extraordinary breach of taste"; Green Party politician Alice Ströver described it as "tasteless, disgusting and vulgar".
Mayor Klaus Wowereit has written to Madame Tussauds in London requesting a "sensitive" presentation.
The company has offered to present information about Nazi crimes and to fence in the Führer to prevent anyone getting too close: snap-happy neo-Nazis or would-be vandals.
Interestingly, official outrage over Hitler's comeback appears at odds with the man on the street.
"When we were planning the exhibition, we asked Berliners and tourists and the result was quite clear that Hitler is one of the figures that they want to see," said museum spokesman Natalie Ruoss. "Seeing as we're portraying the history of Germany, we could hardly have left him out."
Some 57 per cent of Tagesspiegelnewspaper readers agreed that "Hitler is an historical figure, thus belongs in the show", while 43 per cent in the unrepresentative reader survey said "Hitler should stay where he belongs - in history books".
The Führerbunker is one of Berlin's top tourist destinations, while an exhibition showing Hitler's plans for post-war Berlin has been doing brisk trade beside the new Holocaust memorial.
Jewish groups have been more circumspect about the plans.
"Hitler should not become a tourist attraction," said Stephen Kramer, general secretary of the Central Council of Jews in Germany.
"But if this exhibition helps to some extent to normalise the way of dealing with Hitler, as a kind of demystification, let's try it."