Breker is best known for his neoclassical, muscular figures

The show in the north-eastern city of Schwerin displays works by Arno Breker - including some of the muscular figures he created for the Nazis.

The exhibition, which opened on Friday, is the first featuring Breker to be staged in Germany since World War II. He lived from 1900 to 1991.

Some artists protested against the exhibition, which ends on 22 October.

A joint appeal for the show to be cancelled was issued by 34 local artists, gallery owners and art historians.

The head of Berlin's prestigious Academy of Arts, Klaus Staeck, added his voice to the protests.

Heated debate

The Schleswig-Holstein-Haus is showing about 70 of Breker's works.

Arno Breker (right) with Adolf Hitler (centre) and Albert Speer in Paris

Schwerin's deputy mayor, Hermann Junghans, told the Associated Press that the show was "absolutely necessary".

"It was clear to us that this would be controversial, that's why the decision didn't come easily. Everyone will see that we are far too critical of Breker for this to be any kind of rehabilitation," he said.

Breker had personal relationships with Adolf Hitler and the Nazis' chief architect Albert Speer. He was also a friend of the French artist and film-maker Jean Cocteau and surrealist painter Salvador Dali.

He studied architecture and sculpture in Duesseldorf and worked for several years in Paris, before returning to Germany in the 1930s.

While most of his sculptures survived the war, many of his monumental Nazi-era works were destroyed.