BERLIN ¨C The editor-in-chief of Der Spiegel on Sunday said a front cover illustration of U.S. President Donald Trump beheading the Statue of Liberty, which split opinion at home and abroad, was a response by the German magazine to threats against democracy.

Published on Saturday, the cover depicts a cartoon figure of Trump with a bloodied knife in one hand and the statue¡¯s head, dripping with blood, in the other. It carries the caption: ¡°America First.¡±

It followed a series of attacks on Berlin¡¯s policies by Trump and his aides that have marked a rapid deterioration in German relations with the United States.

¡°Der Spiegel does not want to provoke anybody,¡± editor-in-chief Klaus Brinkbaeumer told Reuters TV after the cover set off a debate on Twitter and in German and international media, adding he was surprised by the impact of the illustration.

¡°We want to show what this is about, it¡¯s about democracy, it¡¯s about freedom, it¡¯s about freedom of the press, freedom of justice and all that is seriously endangered,¡± he said.

¡°So we are defending democracy. ... Are these serious times? Yes they are.¡±

Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, a member of Germany¡¯s Free Democrats and vice president of the European Parliament, described the cover as ¡°tasteless.¡±

Die Welt said it ¡°damages journalism,¡± while another German daily, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, said it was ¡°exactly what Trump needs ¡ª a distorted image of him, which he can use to work more on his distorted image of the press.¡±

Karl-Georg Wellmann, a lawmaker for Chancellor Angela Merkel¡¯s Christian Democratic Union, told mass-selling daily Bild: ¡°I urge everyone to calm down and to handle this with reason, rather than gut feeling.¡±

Merkel was the go-to European ally for former U.S. President Barack Obama, who praised her as ¡°an outstanding partner.¡±

But Trump has said she made a ¡°catastrophic mistake¡± with her open-door migration policy, and his top trade adviser last week accused Germany of using a ¡°grossly undervalued¡± euro to gain advantage over the United States and its European partners.