Berlin: German firefighters have removed a golden statue of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on security grounds after it provoked an angry response from local people.

Organisers of the Biennale arts festival whose theme this year is "Bad News" had installed the four-metre statue of Erdogan with one arm outstretched on a plinth in the central Square of German Unity in the western town of Wiesbaden on Monday.

But the statue — depicting Erdogan with his right arm raised, evoking the statue of Saddam Hussein toppled by US forces in Iraq — got daubed with graffiti, including the slogan "Turkish Hitler", German media reported, and a few hundred residents had protested against it.

Police said they could no longer guarantee people's safety so firefighters used a large crane to take away the statue under the cover of darkness in the early hours of Wednesday.