Work began on Monday to convert the house in Austria where Adolf Hitler was born in 1889 into a police station. This is part of a project to make the site unattractive to people who glorify the Nazi dictator.
The decision about the future of the property in the town of Braunau am Inn, a town on the Austrian border with Germany, was made at the end of 2019. The plans include a police station, the district police headquarters and a branch of the security academy, where police officers receive human rights training.
On Monday, workers erected fences and began taking measurements for construction. The police are expected to occupy the space in early 2026.
Before the renovation project, there was a years-long tug of war over ownership of the house. The issue was resolved in 2017 when Austria’s Supreme Court ruled that the government had the right to expropriate the building after its owner refused to sell it. The proposal to demolish it was rejected.
The building had been rented by the Austrian Ministry of the Interior since 1972 to prevent abuse and sublet to various charities. After a care center for seniors with disabilities moved out in 2011, it remained empty.
A tombstone with the inscription “For freedom, democracy and freedom.” No more fascism. “Millions of dead people remind us” that outside the building will remain in this place.
Fanny Steinmetz survived the Auschwitz extermination camp.
The Austrian government argues that moving the police, as guardians of civil rights, is the best use of the building. But there was criticism of the plan.
The historian Florian Kotanko complained that “there is a complete lack of historical contextualization.” He argued that the Home Office’s intention to remove the building’s “recognizability factor” through a redesign was “unachievable”.
“Demystification must be an essential part,” he added, defending the proposal to have an exhibition in the building about people who saved Jews during the Nazi regime.