Hitler's birthplace in Austria to be used for police human rights training

By Askin Kiyagan

VIENNA (AA) - The house in Austria where Adolf Hitler was born will be used for human rights training for police officers.

Following a lengthy dispute, officials decided to use the house in the town of Braunau am Inn near the German border after the government acquired the building in 2016 through a compulsory purchase order.

Relocation plans for the police were announced in 2020 by then-Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer of the conservative OVP party.

Speaking to reporters, Oliver Rathkolb, a historian and member of the commission which was formed to prevent the house from becoming a haunt of Nazi sympathizers and to ensure its reuse, announced the plan.

Sharing a survey result which showed that 23% think the house should be demolished, however, he reminded that the building could not be demolished due to legal regulations.

Rathkolb said that police officers in the state of Upper Austria will receive human rights training in the house, while it will be kept open as a training center for all security forces in the country.

Hitler was born on April 20, 1889 in the house in Braunau, Upper Austria, and spent part of his early childhood in southern Germany. Most of his adult life took place in Munich and Berlin.

In 1945, after the end of World War II, US soldiers occupied Hitler's birthplace, where it temporarily housed an exhibit on the horrors of Nazi death camps.