Austria’s Government Wants To Stop Neo-Nazis From Visiting Hitler’s Birthplace — But Locals Are Divided on How To Do It
Work started yesterday to turn Hitler’s birthplace in Braunau am Inn, Austria, into a police station, district police headquarters, and human rights training center.
Austria’s Ministry of the Interior hopes that the change will keep the house from becoming a neo-Nazi pilgrimage site. But the current plan has drawn mixed reactions from locals, many of whom have suggested that the building should be used for social services.
“I am somewhat undecided. There used to be a social aid office here where I did my civil service,” a local told DW. “That would probably be a better solution — a social institution.”
Their thoughts were echoed by another local, who told the same outlet, “I have thought a lot about this issue and think that using it for another social or cultural institution would have been better. So I’m not really in favor of a police station.”
The decision is complicated by the discovery of a May 10, 1939, newspaper article, which stated Hitler wanted his birthplace to house offices for district authorities. Some say that the current plan amounts to fulfilling his wish.
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A citizen’s association, Bürgerinitiative Diskurs Hitlerhaus (Discourse Hitler House), is in total opposition to the police station.
“The symbolic effect would be catastrophic,” said the association’s spokesperson Eveline Doll, who noted the role the police played during the Nazi-era.
Discourse Hitler House surveyed 1,000 Austrians in March 2023 and found that 52% wanted the site to become an “institution that deals thematically with National Socialism, remembrance, anti-fascism, tolerance and peace,” while 23% wanted it to be demolished, and only 6% wanted police offices there.
Doll said she would rather the site house an exhibition created by Friends of Yad Vashem, a Holocaust remembrance and education organization. The exhibit commemorates non-Jewish people who saved Jewish people during the Holocaust.
Other locals said that a police station is not the way to combat neo-Nazism and that the presence of police puts locals under suspicion of being part of the movement.
“In my opinion, it is a sign of fear that a police station is being established here,” a local said. “Because people are afraid that neo-Nazis could cause trouble here and think that could be prevented by permanent presence of police. It is a defensive move, not an offensive one.”
“A conversion to a police station is completely the wrong signal, a slap in the face of the victims," said director Günter Schwaiger, who made a documentary about Hitler’s birthplace called “Who's Afraid of Braunau?”
“Braunau is not a brown town. Quite the opposite!” she said (“brown” is a term historically used to denote Nazis). “You don't need to be afraid of Braunau and certainly not of the people.”
Oskar Deutsch, president of the Jewish Community of Vienna, said that while he could’ve imagined other uses for the building, the top priority is stopping neo-Nazism. He said that “a police station of a democratic constitutional state is intended here, whose task is, among other things, to take action against National Socialist re-enactment.”
Though this debate will likely continue, nothing concrete stands in the way of the planned change. Police intend to begin using the building in early 2026.
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Charitable organizations have sublet the building since 1972 for a variety of uses. Most recently, it housed a care center for adults with disabilities. The center vacated the premises in 2011, leaving it empty. In 2017, Austria’s government expropriated the building from its owner, with the intent to demolish it. A memorial stone at the site reads: “For peace, freedom and democracy. Never again fascism. The millions of dead remind us.”
