BERLIN -- A private Berlin museum has unveiled a replica of part of the bunker where Adolf Hitler spent the final phase of the Second World War, a project that hasn't been universally welcomed.

The replica of Hitler's office went on display Thursday in a former air-raid shelter some 2 kilometres (1 1/4 miles) from the site of the real bunker demolished long ago.

Curator Wieland Giebel says the Berlin Story Bunker isn't staging a "Hitler show."

Giebel tells new agency dpa that the replica only can be seen on a guided tour beginning in a shelter that was meant for 3,500 people and by the war's end housed 12,000, a contrast with the comparatively spacious Fuehrer bunker.

The nearby Topography of Terror museum, which documents Nazi crimes, criticized the reproduction as showmanship.