Austria seizes Adolf Hitler’s house to stop Nazi gatherings

Araweelo News Network

Braunau(ANN)Adolf Hitler ruled Nazi Germany from 1933 until his suicide at the end of World War II in 1945. Under his reign the Nazis slaughtered millions of people. He was born in a three-story butter-yellow house in the small Austrian town of Braunau am Inn in 1889. The building has recently become a place of pilgrimage for Nazi sympathizers, despite being generally unmarked. Now, following several years of debate, the Austrian government has decided that the only way to stop it from becoming a destination for Nazi tourists is to seize the house.

“We have come to the conclusion over the past few years that expropriation is the only way to avoid the building being used for the purposes of Nazi [sympathizers],” Austrian Interior Ministry spokesman Karl-Heinz Grundboeck said on Saturday. “We are currently examining the creation of a law, which would force a change of ownership and pass the property to the Republic of Austria.”
The house fell empty in 2011, following a dispute between the owner and the Austrian government, who leased it in 1972 and was using it as a center for the disabled.

Despite the property’s only link to the past being a stone inscribed with the words, “Never again Fascism. In memory of millions of dead,” it still seems to pique the interest of neo-Nazi sympathizers, with large groups of them frequenting there especially on Hitler’s birthday.

The Austrian official did not elaborate on what the government plans to do with the house. But there have been suggestions of turning it into a center for refugees or a memorial to the victims of the war. In 2012, a Russian MP, Frantz Klintsevich, suggested purchasing the property and blowing it up “demonstratively.”