The Austrian government has decided to turn the house, which saw the birth of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, into a police station to deter Nazi tourists. The Austrian government decided on Tuesday the fate of the house, in which Hitler spent the first few months of his life.
"The future use of the building by the police will be an unequivocal signal that this building will never contribute to the memory of national socialism," Austrian Interior Minister Wolfgang Bischorn said in a statement. Nazi extremists were traveling to the city to take pictures in front of the house, the German news agency DPA reported, citing local witnesses.
The house will not be converted immediately, because the Austrian government will hold an EU-wide architectural competition to redesign the building and the exterior. According to the Ministry of Interior, the winner of the competition is expected to be announced in the first half of 2020.
Tuesday's decision follows a lengthy legal battle between the Austrian government and the former owner of the house. In early 2017, the government confiscated the building from its private owner, leading to years of legal battle over compensation. The legal battle ended in August this year, when the government paid 810,000 euros ($ 897,600 at current exchange rates) to compensate the owner.
Hitler, who led Nazi Germany to a world war that killed more than 50 million people, was born in an upstairs apartment in 1889. He lived there a few months before his parents moved to Passau, Germany. When the Nazis came to power, they turned the house into a symbol of fascism.
After World War II, the building was used as a library, a care center for the disabled, and an art school.
The Austrian government had previously seen a set of proposals for the building, including one to demolish it. The house remained abandoned for five years when the Austrian parliament voted to take the property in 2016 in order to prevent it from becoming a pilgrimage site for neo-Nazis.