Hitler's birthplace turned into a police station to deter neo-Nazis

Adolf Hitler's birthplace in the Austrian town of Braunau am Inn opened as a police station on Wednesday following several years of renovation, in a move intended to prevent the building from continuing to attract neo-Nazis, reported dpa.

The site is now becoming "a place of democracy, the rule of law, freedom, and human dignity," said Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Karner at the opening ceremony.

The renovation cost around €20 million ($22.8 million). Around 50 officers from the district police command and the local police inspectorate are to be based in the complex, which includes outbuildings and a courtyard.

The opening brings to a close years of debate over how to deal with the Nazi legacy in the town of 18,000 residents.

The house in which Hitler was born on April 20, 1889, was long in private ownership. Hitler's family left the building just months after his birth before moving elsewhere in Braunau and later to the Bavarian city of Passau, in Germany.

In 2017, the building was expropriated following a legal dispute. An expert commission ruled out demolition and conversion into a museum, recommending instead a redesign that would make the building as difficult to recognize as possible.

During the renovation, authorities monitored the construction site to prevent collectors from obtaining Nazi memorabilia. Rubble from the building was shredded, mixed with other material and disposed of at an undisclosed location, according to Austria's Interior Ministry.

Historians call for greater focus on Nazi past

Hitler's birthplace frequently attracts far-right extremists. The state also regards the new use as a police station as advantageous because suspicious individuals can be checked immediately on the spot.

Some historians had argued the building should have become a place dedicated to confronting Austria's Nazi past rather than simply being repurposed. They continue to call for a multilingual information board explaining the site's history.

Currently, only a memorial stone installed outside the building in 1989 commemorates the victims of Nazi terror. It bears the inscription: "For peace, freedom and democracy - Never again fascism - Millions of dead serve as a warning."

Hitler unleashed World War II, in which at least 60 million people died. In the Holocaust, around 6 million Jewish men and women were also murdered.