Hitler’s birthplace in Austria reopens as police station to deter pilgrimages

Austria has opened a police station at Adolf Hitler’s birthplace in an effort to destroy the building’s appeal as a site of pilgrimage for people who glorify the Nazi dictator.

A memorial stone is to remain in place outside the house in Braunau am Inn near the German border with the inscription, “For freedom, democracy and liberty. Never again fascism. Millions of dead remind us”.

Hitler was born in the building on April 20 1889. His family moved to another residence in Braunau am Inn after only a few months, before settling temporarily in Passau in southern Germany.

Fuelled by racial fanaticism, Hitler’s Nazi regime killed approximately six million Jews and other minorities and groups during the Holocaust.

The dictator unleashed the Second World War in which at least 60 million people died. He took his own life in April 1945, shortly before the end of the war.

“The Republic of Austria, the state, the county is facing up to this heritage, the terrible heritage of this time, and commits itself to deal with it,” Austria’s interior minister, Gerhard Karner, said during the opening ceremony of the police station on Wednesday. “This entails this house and this address.”

The renovation of the building took several years and cost around 20 million euros, Austrian news agency APA reported. It was preceded by a years-long back-and-forth over the ownership of the house.

The ownership question was resolved in 2017 when Austria’s highest court ruled the government was within its rights to expropriate the building after its owner refused to sell. A suggestion it might be demolished was dropped.

The building had been rented by Austria’s Interior Ministry since 1972 to prevent its misuse and was sublet to various charitable organisations. The structure stood empty after a care centre for adults with disabilities moved out in 2011.

The Austrian government has said the best use for the building would be the presence of the police as guardians of civil liberties. But critics said the building in its current presentation lacks historical context.

A commission of experts came out against turning the building into a museum, advocating instead for a redesign that would not be easily recognisable.

The building’s ochre-yellow was turned white, the arched windows were replaced by simple rectangular shapes and the facade has been extended upward towards the roof. Debris from the construction was disposed of at a secret location to ensure it would not become a new source for Nazi memorabilia, APA reported.

In the past, far-right extremists repeatedly paid homage to Hitler, photographing the building, taking stones as souvenirs and laying flowers and wreaths.