Webdesk: The Austrian government plans to utilise Adolf Hitler’s birth house for police human rights training, a stunning turn in the fight over its future.
After a long fight, the government bought the Braunau am Inn residence in 2016.
Hitler born in a top-floor rented room in 1889. After much debate, the facility will become a police human rights training centre.
Some Austrians want to demolish the home to keep neo-Nazis out, but detractors say it would be ignoring Austria’s past. Various groups suggest repurposing the home as a reconciliation centre or charity headquarters.
The house will remodelled in autumn and finished by 2025. The police will move into the refurbished building next year, according to ORF.
Moreover, The Nazis turned the mansion into a Hitler monument, luring tourists. While, In 1944, the Nazis lost power and boarded up the structure. The Austrian government rented the house from Gerlinde Pommer, who had run it as a special-needs creche, to deter far-right tourism. Pommer stopped future upgrades.
A 2016 statute permitted the authorities to seize Pommer’s property for above €800,000 (£694,000). Three years later, the interior ministry revealed plans to turn the 17th-century home into a police station and training centre.
Austria, captured by Nazi Germany in 1938, long claimed victimhood. However, the country has progressively admitted to Nazi misdeeds, prompting discussions about its complex history. Austria’s choice to reuse Hitler’s birth house to teach law enforcement about human rights shows its willingness to face its past.
