Austria officially inaugurates a brand new police station in Adolf Hitler’s birthplace in Braunau-an-Inn on Wednesday, hoping to make the building less attractive as a neo-Nazi gathering place after decades of controversy.
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The building, nestled in a shopping street in the heart of the small town near the German border, is now unrecognizable after costly 20 million euros of work started in 2023, three years behind the initial schedule.
The building where the dictator was born on April 20, 1889 dates back to the 17th century and was raised by the Austrian architectural firm Marte. Its yellow plaster has been replaced by a sober white facade.
Above the entrance there is a police logo and on the sidewalk there is always a memorial stone with the inscription “For peace, freedom and democracy. Never again fascism. Millions of deaths remind us of this. »
A memorial stone reading “For Peace, Freedom and Democracy – Never Again Fascism – Millions of Dead Warn Us” stands in front of the birthplace of former German dictator Adolf Hitler, converted into a police station, in Braunau am Inn, Austria, July 16, 2026.
AFP
Which should, the authorities hope, end a long and delicate series, in a country often criticized for having been slow to recognize its responsibility in the Shoah, during which 65,000 Austrian Jews were killed and 130,000 forced into exile.
This reflection on the Nazi past comes as the far right continues to make progress in opinion polls.
According to a survey published Sunday by the daily Crown newspaperthe FPÖ party, founded by former Nazis and which sits in opposition, received 38% of voting intentions, compared to nearly 29% during the last legislative elections in September 2024.
Expropriation
Adolf Hitler’s birthplace had belonged to the same family since 1912.
It was first rented from 1972 by the Austrian state, which set up a center for the disabled, a category of the population victims of the Third Reich.
While the address regularly attracts neo-Nazis, the last owner, Gerlinde Pommer, vetoed any transformation of the building and then contested, by all possible means, its expropriation.
It took the passing of a special law for the general interest to take precedence in 2016. Three years later, the Austrian Supreme Court validated the purchase for 810,000 euros of the 800 square meters of floor space.
A memorial stone reading “For Peace, Freedom and Democracy – Never Again Fascism – Millions of Dead Warn Us” stands in front of the birthplace of former German dictator Adolf Hitler, converted into a police station, in Braunau am Inn, Austria, July 16, 2026.
AFP
Concerning the future of the building, several options were then studied. A commission of experts decided not to make it a place of memory, in order to prevent it from becoming a magnet for neo-Nazis.
A demolition has also been ruled out, as Austria must confront its past, according to historians.
Without being unanimous, the decision was made: it will be a police station, to “show clearly”, according to the government, that no commemoration of National Socialism is possible there.
However, this did not end the controversy.
“This transformation will not discourage a single neo-Nazi tempted by the pilgrimage,” Robert Eiter, of the Austrian Mauthausen Committee (MKÖ), an association of survivors of the Austrian concentration camp, responded to AFP.
As for the “neutralization” of the place by the police, he says he is “skeptical”.
“Without wanting to generalize, we unfortunately regularly see that part of the police lean very, very right. »
