BERLIN — A visitor decapitated a wax figure of Adolf Hitler just minutes after the Berlin branch of Madame Tussauds opened its doors for the first time Saturday.

The 41-year-old Berliner, the second visitor on the opening day of the museum, jumped over a rope meant to distance visitors from the sculpture and ripped the head off the likeness of the Nazi leader, police spokesman Bernhard Schodrowski said. A museum employee was injured slightly in the incident.

Police arrested the man, who apparently was making a protest, on suspicion of causing bodily injury and damage to property.

After the incident, the museum remained open, but the beheaded Hitler sculpture was removed.

In recent weeks, controversy had erupted over whether to exhibit the Hitler sculpture at the museum.

Mayor Klaus Wowereit had urged the museum to consider carefully whether to include the dictator’s likeness and, if they did, to be careful how they presented it. Stephan Kramer, head of Germany’s Jewish Central Council, said that if the exhibit was done in the proper manner, it could provide an opportunity to demystify a man responsible for the death of 6 million Jews.

Museum spokeswoman Natalie Ruoss said: “It was our objective to show Hitler not in a glorifying way.” In the exhibit, Hitler was shown in a scene of late 1944 sitting at a desk in a bunker under a map of Europe. He wore a gray uniform and had the expression of a broken man.

A visitor who left the exhibition after the incident said: “This will happen again and again.”

Unlike other figures in the museum, Ruoss said, visitors were not allowed to touch or photograph Hitler’s figure, to avoid the possibility of someone posing with the image for a photo. She told the Berlin radio station Info-Radio it was not yet clear if the Hitler figure would return to the exhibition.