What happened
Austria has opened a police station in the building where Adolf Hitler was born, in the town of Braunau am Inn. The move follows years of controversy over how to prevent the 17th-century former inn from becoming a neo-Nazi pilgrimage site. The building has been substantially refurbished, with its facade changed, and now houses police officers who were stationed outside as it opened on Wednesday.
Why it matters for the market
Hitler was born in the building in April 1889 but lived there only for a few weeks before his family moved to another address in Braunau. They left the town for good when he was three years old. Hitler briefly returned in 1938 after annexing Austria to Nazi Germany.
For decades, the interior ministry rented the building from its former owner, Gerlinde Pommer, paying generous rent to prevent extreme right-wing tourism. The building was used by a local charity as a day centre for people with special needs until 2011, when Pommer blocked renovations. She repeatedly refused to sell the property.
In 2016, parliament passed a law allowing the government to seize the house, paying Pommer €812,000 in compensation. She later challenged the sum in court but lost. Interior minister at the time, Wolfgang Sobotka, suggested tearing down the building, but critics argued that would deny Austria's Nazi past.
In 2019, the government announced plans to turn it into a police station and held an EU-wide architectural competition. Millions of euros were spent on refurbishment. Not everyone is happy with the decision; some wanted a centre confronting the Nazi past, while local historian Florian Kotanko noted that the former charity did not want to return, fearing being used as a fig leaf.
What traders should watch
The building now has security cameras to monitor potential neo-Nazi pilgrims. A memorial stone from the Mauthausen concentration camp outside reads: "Never again Fascism; In memory of millions of dead." Hitler's name does not appear, but Kotanko believes the site's history will never go away, and Austrians must deal with it openly.
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