Adolf Hitler's childhood home will be converted into a police station

A memorial stone outside Hitler's former home in Braunau Am Inn, Austria
A memorial stone outside Hitler's former home in Braunau Am Inn, Austria Copyright ReutersCrowcroft, Orlando
By Euronews & Reuters
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Austrian authorities are concerned that the building could turn into a shrine for neo-Nazis.

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The house where Adolf Hitler was born in will be turned into a police station, Austria’s interior minister said on Tuesday, after years of debate over how best to prevent it becoming a pilgrimage site for neo-Nazis.

The building has been subject to a long-running court battle as its owner for more than a century, the family of Gerlinde Pommer, wanted more money for it than the government was willing to pay. AFP reported Tuesday that the family will receive €810,000, less than they wanted. 

The house is in the Austrian town of Braunau am Inn, on the border with Germany, Austria will invite architects to submit plans for a redesign of the building. It will house the local police force’s offices, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

“The house’s future use by the police should send an unmistakable signal that this building will never again evoke the memory of National Socialism,” Interior Minister Wolfgang Peschorn, who serves in a provisional government of civil servants, said in the statement.

Architects from across the European Union will be invited to submit plans for the building’s redesign this month and a jury of experts and public officials will pick the winning design in the first half of next year, the Interior Ministry said.

Although Hitler was born in Braunau in 1889, Austria argued for decades that it was the first victim of National Socialism, having been annexed by Hitler’s Germany in 1938.

Recent governments have, however, recognised that Austrians were also perpetrators of Nazi crimes and that there was little resistance to Hitler’s rule.

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