Austria opens €20m police station in Hitler's birthplace to end neo-Nazi pilgrimages

A building with a dark past

The three-storey house at Salzburger Vorstadt 15 in Braunau am Inn, parts of which date from the 17th century, is where Adolf Hitler was born on 20 April 1889. His family rented a flat on the upper floor and left the town when he was three years old. During the 1938 annexation of Austria, the property was briefly turned into a museum dedicated to the dictator. A granite memorial stone from the Mauthausen concentration camp still stands on the pavement outside, inscribed: "For peace, freedom and democracy. Never again fascism. Millions of dead remind us."

Decades of legal wrangling

From 1972 the Austrian state rented the building and used it as a day centre for people with disabilities, paying a generous monthly rent to the Pommer family, who had owned it since 1912. That arrangement collapsed in 2011 when owner Gerlinde Pommer blocked renovations meant to make the space accessible. She repeatedly refused to sell to the government, and the property stood empty for years. In 2016 parliament passed a law enabling expropriation, and in 2017 the highest court confirmed the seizure. Pommer received €812,000 in compensation and later lost a legal challenge claiming the sum was too low.

The transformation

An expert commission rejected both demolition and a museum, recommending instead a social, charitable or official use. The government opted for a police station, hoping the mundane function would strip the site of its mystique. Renovation work by Austrian firm Marte began in 2023 and cost €20m. The ochre facade was replaced with a sober white exterior, arched windows gave way to rectangular ones, and a police logo now hangs above the entrance. Even construction rubble was disposed of at a secret location to prevent it becoming a Nazi souvenir.

A police station for democracy

At Wednesday's opening ceremony, attended by about 100 people and a police orchestra, Interior Minister Gerhard Karner called it a "new chapter".

Now this house will become a place of democracy, the rule of law, security, freedom and human dignity.

He stressed that the memorial stone would remain and that "memory will not disappear". The station will house around 45 officers and the district police command, with a unit specialising in narcotics trafficking. District commander Stefan Haslberger noted the town's proximity to the German border puts it on a key drug-running route. Mayor Johannes Waidbacher said the opening "shows that the city of Braunau confronts its history, that it assumes its responsibilities", and expressed hope it would bring "a little serenity" to residents.

Political backdrop and criticism

The inauguration comes as the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ), founded by former Nazis, leads opinion polls. A Kronen Zeitung survey published on Sunday put the FPÖ at 38% voting intention, up from nearly 29% in the September 2024 legislative election. Austria has long been criticised for being slow to acknowledge its role in the Holocaust, in which 65,000 Austrian Jews were murdered and 130,000 forced into exile.

Not everyone welcomed the police station. Robert Eiter of the Mauthausen Committee Austria said the message being sent was "let's forget it as quickly as possible" and predicted the number of right-wing pilgrims would not fall. For years skinheads had laid roses and wreaths at the building on Hitler's birthday, while extremists and drunken revellers posed for photos giving the straight-armed Hitler salute. Local residents often called it the "house of evil". The government insists the police presence will finally neutralise the site.