Hitler’s birthplace begins new life as a police station
After years of controversy over the large, traditional terraced house in the town of Braunau am Inn, which is privately owned and houses a disability charity, Austria made a compulsory purchase in 2017 and announced in 2019 that it would be redeveloped into a police station.
Even before his conversion, the only sign of his historical significance was a rock on the pavement of the Mauthausen concentration camp with the words “Never fascism again” written on it, without Hitler’s name. The rock remains in place. The only sign added to the white facade reads “Police”.
“The aim was to prevent any association with Adolf Hitler and thus demystify him,” Stephan Mlczoch, head of the history department at the Austrian interior ministry, told reporters while touring the building.
OLD ART MUSEUM
This mystique was encouraged by the Nazis’ cult of personality around Hitler, under whose rule the “Führer’s birthplace” became an art museum. Hitler lived there for only a few weeks before his family moved in 1889, Mlczoch said.
Passersby often stop to take photographs, but their views on Hitler are generally unknown. Local officials said there were now fewer “isolated incidents” involving visitors than before. The Hitler salute and other Nazi symbols were banned in Austria, although it did not elaborate.
Asked about public reaction to the project, Mayor Johannes Waidbacher told Reuters: “I think the people of Braunau generally accept it and can live with it.”
Waidbacher was on a commission that recommended using the building for charitable or official administrative purposes. After all, having a charity there would make it too accessible to the public, he said.
“I don’t think it’s a bad approach, but we’ll have to wait and see if it works the way we all hope and expect,” he said.
NEVER FORGET OR SHOULD WE FORGET?
There was some opposition, including from the Mauthausen Committee, Austria’s main group of Holocaust survivors, who argued both that the police station was inappropriate and that more should be done to draw attention to Hitler’s crimes.
“Every year at the Mauthausen concentration camp memorial there is a ceremony to say: never again. And in Braunau they say: let’s forget as soon as possible,” said Robert Eiter of the Mauthausen Committee and the Network Against Racism and Far-Right Extremism.
For decades, Austria has argued that it was the first victim of National Socialism, having been annexed by Hitler’s Germany in 1938. The Austrians are now also said to be the perpetrators, but details are rarely given beyond that.
“The world will not forget where the worst mass murderer in history was born. It will not change its Wikipedia entries,” Eiter said, adding that there would be no decrease in the number of neo-Nazis “making the pilgrimage to Braunau”.
Some residents questioned the home’s transformation.
“I would prefer it if they did something else but it is what it is,” said Irene, 74, adding that she would want the charity to remain there.
But most supported it.
“This is a great, good idea,” said real estate agent Thomas Spreitz. “Every now and then there are (neo-Nazi) groups out there, and that’s history now.”
