Hitler’s house to be demolished
The house in Austria where Hitler was born is to be demolished to stop Nazi pilgrimages. Photo: Wolff&Tritschler/Ullstein bild/Getty
The Austrian government says it plans to demolish the house where Adolf Hitler was born and erect a new building in its place in efforts to erase any link to the Nazi dictator’s birthplace.
Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka said Monday that “a thorough architectural re-modelling is necessary to permanently prevent the recognition and the symbolism of the building”.
The Austrian government wants to sever the link to the Nazi dictator’s birthplace. Photo: ullstein bild/Getty
Ministry spokesman Karl-Heinz Grundboeck said that effectively means the house, in the western town of Braunau, will replaced by a new structure.
Sobotka says he wants to ensure that any association with Hitler be eliminated at the site, now an occasional place of neo-Nazi pilgrimage.
The owner had repeatedly refused to sell the building. It was unclear whether she changed her mind or if the government acted on plans to dispossess her.
Some local historians have expressed doubt that the site would become a shrine however, and have bemoaned the move as wasteful.
This seems very silly: Braunau loses a nice old house and the place of pilgrimage was in Leonding: https://t.co/977IiyZTcP
— Giles MacDonogh (@GilesMacDonogh) October 17, 2016
A poor and sad decision #destroyinghistory Braunau demolishes Hitler's birth house #history https://t.co/wxjRHscdEV
— Rob Schaefer (@GerMilHistory) October 17, 2016