Austria: Hitler's house will be demolished

Austrian authorities will demolish the birthplace of Adolf Hitler in northern region of the country on that site for a new building to be built, putting an end to years of legal battles over its destination, the Austrian Interior Minister announced on Monday.

More, Austria’s interior minister, Wolfgang Sobotka, told the local daily Die Presse that “the Hitler house will be torn down.” On Tuesday, he told reporters that the term “torn down” is debatable but the building, in the western town of Braunau, will be so thoroughly redesigned that it “will not be recognizable.” According to the minister, the new building will be used for charitable or administrative purposes.

For this project to materialize, the Austrian Government should complete the expropriation proceedings of the house located in the center of Braunau-am-Inn, nearby the German border, said to AFP a spokesman for the Austrian Interior Ministry.

A landlady expropriation bill was drafted in July, for that the Austrian government to recover this property and prevent the risk that the home become Nazi pilgrimage. The presentation date of this law in the Austrian Parliament is not yet known. This large house with yellow facade, where Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889, has been empty since 2011, the date on which the Government was involved in a judicial dispute with its current owner, Gerlinde Pommer, a resident of the town, whose family has owned the building for more than a century.

In the 70s, the government signed a contract with Gerlinde Pommer and his house to be occupied by people with disabilities, until when the owner has refused to authorize the necessary renovations and the center was closed. Thereafter, the fate of the building has been the subject of debate among experts and even within the government.