Birthplace of Adolf Hitler reopens as police station in bid to deter Neo-Nazis

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The new police station is located in the town of Braunau am Inn, near the German border, and was officially opened on Wednesday.

The building, parts of which date to the 17th century, briefly housed the Hitler family after his birth in 1889.

It later served as an inn, brewery and residential property before being used as a care home for people with disabilities until 2011.

After years of debate about what to do with the large, traditional terraced house, the Austrian government bought it in 2017 and announced two years later it would be remodelled and turned into a police station.

The project, which cost about €20million, ended years of discussion over how to reckon with one of the country’s most contentious historical landmarks.

Many had called for the property to be demolished, turned into a museum or repurposed for public use.

Before the conversion, the only sign of its historical significance was a rock outside on the pavement from the Mauthausen concentration camp with the inscription "Never again fascism" which does not mention Hitler.

The rock remains in place. The only sign added to the white facade reads "Police".

"The aim was to prevent any association with Adolf Hitler, so as to strip it of that mystique," the head of the Austrian interior ministry's history department, Stephan Mlczoch, told reporters on a tour of the building.

At the opening ceremony, Interior Minister Gerhard Karner said the building marked a “new chapter” in which it would become a “place of democracy, the rule of law, security”.

At the same time, he added that “memory will not disappear”.

The property has long attracted neo-Nazis, with extremists, fanatics and visitors gathering outside on Hitler’s birthday, laying flowers and posing for photographs while giving Nazi salutes.

Residents have nicknamed it the “house of evil.”