Austria unveils new design for Hitler's birthplace
June 2, 2020
The house where Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler was born will now be turned into a police station. The sleek new design seeks to "neutralize" the politically and historically charged building and to deter neo-Nazis.
The Austrian government revealed the winning plan to redesign Adolf Hitler's birth house on Tuesday, with the yellow building set to become a police station.
The move follows decades of debate over what to do with the building in the northern Austrian town of Braunau am Inn where Hitler was born in April 1889 and spent the first months of his life.
"A new chapter will be opened for the future from the birth house of a dictator and mass murderer," Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said at a press conference.
"It is the most appropriate use [for the building]. Why? The police are the protector of fundamental rights and freedoms," Nehammer said.
Architects hope the design will help neutralize the site, so that neo-Nazis are no longer drawn to itImage: picture-alliance/AP Photo/Marte.Marte Architekten
Austrian architecture firm Marte.Marte. beat out 11 other competitors with their simple, modern redesign for the building. The plans, however, do not tamper with the substance of the original building, but give it a fresh facade.
The government expects the refurbishment project will be completed by early 2023 and that the project will cost around €5 million ($5.6 million).
Making Hitler's birthplace 'neutral'
There is currently little to indicate that the yellow corner house in Braunau am Inn was the birthplace of the man who would rise to become the leader of Nazi Germany, trigger World War II and carry out the Holocaust.
There are no plaques, save for an engraved rock in front of the house that reads: "Fascism never again" but does not mention Hitler by name.
Interior Ministry official Hermann Feiner noted that the rock will be moved to a museum and that the design is meant make the building political neutral and deter Neo-Nazi visitors.
"The neutralization of this whole location was ultimately at the heart of this result," Feiner said, noting that the term "neutralization " references the architectural design.
Although he only lived in the building a short time, Nazi sympathizers from around the world continue to visit the property.
Facing the past
After World War II, the building was used as a library, a care center for the disabled and a technical school.
In early 2017, the government expropriated the building from its private owner, triggering a long legal battle over compensation which ended last year.
The Austrian government previously considered a range of proposals for the building, including possibly demolishing it, but faced pushback from historians.
Austria, which was annexed by Germany in 1938, has been slow to acknowledge the role it played in rise of Nazism and its shared responsibility of the Holocaust. There are few reminders in everyday life about that chapter in Austria's history.
Who was Hitler?
The question "Who was Hitler" is the subject of Hermann Pölking's widely-read book, and now an epic documentary comprised of countless quotations from contemporaries of Adolf Hitler. Here is a selection of quotes.
Image: picture-alliance/AP
Adolf Hitler as child (ca.1890)
"He's different from all the rest of the family." - Mother Klara Hitler, quoted by August Kubizek.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Class photo in Linz, 1900/01
"He was definitely talented, albeit also lopsided, and while not violent, he was considered rebellious. He was not hardworking either." - Dr. Eduard Huemer, Hitler's French teacher. (Adolf Hitler is at the top right of the picture.)
Image: picture-alliance/akg-images
Adolf Hitler self-portrait
"All his relatives considered him to be a no-hoper who shied away from all hard work." - August Kubizek, Adolf Hitler's boyhood friend.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Hitler as a corporal in the First World War
"I have never uncovered what caused Hitler's fanatical hatred towards Jews. The experience with Jewish officers during the World War could not have contributed much to this." - Fritz Wiedemann, Lieutenant in the List Regiment.
Image: Getty Images
Commemorating the Beer Hall Putsch (ca. 1929)
"They had only one virtue: obedience. On order, they were to be used for everything, trained to follow the man and capable of anything. Hitler's Brownshirts were recruited from the dissatisfied and unsuccessful, the ambitious, the ones filled with envy and hatred, from all classes - ready for murder and violence." - Carl Zuckmayer, German dramatist.
Image: Getty Images/H.Hoffmann
Adolf Hitler (1933)
"The people of the upper class want to get close to Hitler. My grandfather had an apt formula for these changeable kind of people: 'You spit in their eyes and they'll ask you if it's raining.' "- Bela Fromm, German-Jewish journalist, January 29, 1932.
Image: Ullstein
Chancellor Hitler officially takes power from President Hindenburg, 1933
"I was not mistaken for a single moment about the fact that the Nazis were enemies - enemies for me and for all that was dear to me. What I was completely wrong about, however, was what terrible enemies they would be." - Sebastian Haffner, journalist, Memoirs.
Image: ullstein bild
Joseph Goebbels speech, 1936
"I go to the party reception in the old town hall. Huge bustle. I report the situation to the Führer. He decides: 'Withdraw police forces. Let the Jews feel the fury of the people.'"- Joseph Goebbels, diary, 10 November 1938.
"I can safely say that before I left for San Francisco, I had learned of the intention of Hitler to destroy incurable patients - not just incurable mental diseases - in the event of a war. As a motive, he said that they were unnecessary eaters." - Fritz Wiedemann, Nazi Party Adjutant to Adolf Hitler until January 19, 1939.
Image: picture-alliance/akg-images
Hitler on Obersalzberg (undated)
"I am firmly convinced that neither England nor France will enter into a general war." - Adolf Hitler before his army generals on Obersalzberg, August 13, 1939.
Image: picture-alliance/akg-images
Albert Speer and Adolf Hitler, 1938
"Throughout the war, Adolf Hitler never visited a bombed city." - Albert Speer, Reich Minister of Armaments and War Production.
Image: picture-alliance/akg-images
Adolf Hitler
"I know that many perceived that Hitler had changed after Stalingrad. I didn't see it that way." - Rochus Misch, sergeant in the SS Escort Command of the Führer
Image: Edition Salzgeber
Hitler after the failed assassination attempt in the Wolf's Lair, 1944
"There I saw Hitler, who looked questioningly at my distraught expression. He quietly said, 'Linge, someone has tried to kill me.'" Heinz Linge, Adolf Hitler's valet.
Image: picture-alliance
Adolf Hitler and Hermann Göring, 1944
"I know the war is lost. Their superiority is clear. I'd like to shoot myself in the head now. [But] we do not give up. Never. We can go down. But we will take a world with us." - Hitler at the end of December 1944 to his adjutant Nicolaus von Below.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Fine Art Images
Newspapers report death of Hitler, 1945
"One feels Hitler's death is just rather pointless now. He should have died some time ago. I wonder how many people comfort themselves with thinking he's frizzling." - Naomi Mitchison, Scottish writer
