Austria Converts Hitler's Birthplace to Police Station

Kathmandu. Austria has formally converted the birthplace of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler into a police station to prevent it from becoming a pilgrimage site for far-right supporters. The new police station was put into operation on Wednesday after a long dispute and legal process.

According to Austrian officials, the decision to make Hitler's birthplace a police station will prevent the site from being used as a symbol of Nazi ideology. It is also expected to end the long-standing dispute over 'What will be the future of this building?'

The 17th-century building in the center of Braunau am Inn town has been renovated at a cost of approximately 20 million Euros. The renovation, completed three years behind schedule, has completely changed the appearance of the building. The house, located near the German border, was where Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889.

The building, previously yellow, has been painted white, and a police station sign has been placed at the entrance. The memorial inscription outside the building still carries the message 'For peace, freedom, and democracy, never again fascism'.

After Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938, about 65,000 Austrian Jews were killed, and more than 100,000 were expelled. However, Austria has been criticized from time to time for not fully accepting its historical responsibility for the Holocaust.

The building had been owned by the same family since 1912. Since 1972, the Austrian government had been renting it and using it as a service center for people with disabilities. The last private owner, Gerlinde Pommer, had been opposing various proposals for the reuse of the building.

After the Austrian parliament decided to acquire the building through a special law in 2016, the Supreme Court approved the government's decision to purchase the property for approximately 810,000 Euros.

Although there was a long discussion on options to demolish the building, turn it into a museum, or use it for other purposes, historians were of the opinion that the building should not be demolished. Finally, on the recommendation of an expert commission, it was decided to make it a police station.

The government expressed confidence that a permanent police presence would send a clear message of zero tolerance towards Nazi ideology and make the building politically neutral.

However, Robert Eiter, spokesperson for the Mauthausen Committee Austria, an organization of concentration camp survivors, said that changing the building's appearance alone cannot be trusted to stop the pilgrimage of neo-Nazi supporters. He expressed the view that it is impossible to erase the historical identity of the birthplace of one of history's most notorious mass murderers.