Berlin (Reuters) – Protected by the police and armed with a new court order, workers on Friday resumed the dismantling of Berlin’s giant Lenin statue, a survivor of the 1989 revolution that ended Communist rule in the former East Germany.  

Policemen scuffled earlier with 40 demonstrators who tried to prevent the workers from erecting more scaffolding around the 19-meter (63-foot) red granite statue.  

Dismantling work was stopped this week by two requests for preliminary injunctions filed by the heirs of Nikolai Tomski, who sculpted the Lenin monument in 1970. Court rejections of the injunctions — the second ruling was issued late on Thursday — cleared the way for the statue’s removal.