Austrian authorities on Tuesday unveiled their plans to “neutralize” the birthplace of Adolf Hitler by transforming it into a police station, the building receiving some cosmetic changes in the process.
The yellow corner house in the city of Braunau, in the north of Austria, on the border with Germany, where Hitler was born on April 20, 1889, was placed under government control in 2016.
The fate of the building was the subject of a long legal battle with the owner of the house, which did not end until last year.
The Austrian architectural firm Marte.Marte, headed by two brothers, was chosen from 12 candidates to carry out the modifications to the property.
The government predicts that the works will cost around 5 million euros ($ 5.6 million) and will be completed in early 2023.
“A new chapter will be opened for the future from the birthplace of a dictator and a mass murderer,” said Interior Minister Karl Nehammer at a press conference announcing the plans.
The head of the ministry, Hermann Feiner, added that by adjusting the architecture and the use of the building, the government aimed to “neutralize all the premises”.
Although Hitler spent only a short time on the property, he continued to attract Nazi sympathizers from around the world.
Anti-fascist protesters also held rallies outside the building on Hitler’s birthday.
Officials said on Tuesday that the 800-square-meter (8,600-square-foot) property – which also includes several garages and parking spaces behind the main building – would get two pointed gables but that much of the original structure would remain intact. .
A commemorative plaque outside the building will also be removed and could be displayed in a museum.
Last year, the highest court in Austria ruled that Gerlinde Pommer, whose family had owned the house for almost a century, was entitled to some 810,000 euros in compensation, thus ending a long legal battle.
Pommer had rented the property to the Home Office since the 1970s.
The government paid him around 4,800 euros per month and used it as a center for the disabled.
But this arrangement collapsed in 2011 when Pommer refused to carry out essential renovations and also refused to sell it.
Since then, the building has remained empty.
At one point, the Interior Ministry lobbied for demolition, but plans met with angry resistance from politicians and historians.
Germany annexed Austria in 1938, and although many of Hitler’s top-down henchmen were Austrians, historians say that the small Alpine country was slow to recognize for many years its shared responsibility for the Holocaust and other crimes of the Nazis.
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
