Hitler's Austrian home where he was born will be converted into a police station, Austrian Interior Minister Eckart Ratz, announced on Tuesday. The home situated in Austrian town of Braunau an Inn, near Austrian border with Germany, will be bought by the Austrian government for about $900,000.
The home is owned by Gerlinde Pommer's family for more than a century, with whom the Austrian government had to fight a long legal battle over the cost of the house. Austria's highest court ruled earlier this year that Pommer was entitled to some €810,000 ($900,000) in compensation, less than she had sought but still more than she had been originally offered.
The house was taken under government's control in early 2017, DW reported. Before that, the government rented the home from its owner for decades for stopping it from becoming a right-wing breeding ground.
Conversion to police station and its redesign
The decision of converting the house into a police station has been taken after deliberations for years, regarding the home's future to stop it from becoming a pilgrimage for the neo-Nazis. "The house's future use by the police should send an unmistakable signal that this building will never again evoke the memory of National Socialism," Interior Minister Wolfgang Peschorn, who serves in a provisional government of civil servants, said in the statement.
Architects across EU invited for the redesign
The government will now invite architects from across the European Union for its redesign. Plans for the redesign will be invited this month and a jury of experts and public officials will pick the winning design in the first half of next year, the Interior Ministry said.
Adolf Hitler, who was born at this place on April 20, 1889, though spent only a short span of time at this place, it has constantly been a major attraction among Nazi-sympathizers. Hitler left the town when he was 3 years old and returned briefly in 1938, when he annexed Austria.
