Hitler’s Birthplace Reopens After Drastic Changes to Curb Neo-Nazi Presence
Adolf Hitler’s birthplace is now a police station, Austria’s interior ministry announced on Wednesday, in what is an attempt to deter Nazi sympathizers from paying homage to the dictator. The 17th-century building in the small town of Braunau am Inn, near the German border, had undergone a three-year renovation process, in part to remove any lingering Nazi influence. “The future use of the house by the police should send an unmistakable signal that the role of this building as a memorial to the Nazis has been permanently revoked,” Wolfgang Peschorn, Austria’s interior minister, said in a statement. Over the years, the building had been a museum, a school, and a library, and visitors would gather on Hitler’s birthday, according to The New York Times. After a descendant of its owners refused to sell, the Austrian government acquired the property through expropriation in 2017. Two years later, plans were announced to house the police there. During the remodeling process, according to Der Standard, rubble from the site was taken to a secret location for disposal, so that neo-Nazis couldn’t use it. A commemorative stone, placed outside the building in the 1980s, remains. It reads, “For freedom, democracy and liberty. Never again fascism. Millions of dead remind us.”

















