San Francisco Frontiers - Austria turns Hitler's home into a police station

"It's a double-edged sword," said Sibylle Treiblmaier, outside the house in the town of Braunau am Inn on the border with Germany.

While it might discourage far-right extremists from gathering at the site, it could have "been used better or differently", the 53-year-old office assistant told AFP.

The government wants to "neutralise" the site and passed a law in 2016 to take control of the dilapidated building from its private owner.

Austria -- which was annexed by Hitler's Germany in 1938 -- has repeatedly been criticised in the past for not fully acknowledging its responsibility in the Holocaust.

The far-right Freedom Party, founded by former Nazis, is ahead in the polls after getting the most votes in a national election for the first time in 2024, though it failed to form a government.

Last year, two streets in Braunau am Inn commemorating Nazis were renamed after years of complaints by activists.

- 'Problematic' -

The house where Hitler was born on April 20, 1889, and lived for a short period of his early life, is right in the centre of town on a narrow shop-lined street.

A memorial stone in front reads: "For Peace, Freedom and Democracy. Never Again Fascism. Millions of Dead Warn."

When AFP visited this week, workers were putting the finishing touches to the renovated facade.

Officers are scheduled to move in during "the second quarter of 2026", the interior ministry said.

But for author Ludwig Laher, a member of the Mauthausen Committee Austria that represents Holocaust victims, "a police station is problematic, as the police... are obliged, in every political system, to protect what the state wants".

An earlier idea to turn the house into a place where people would come together to discuss peace-building had "received a lot of support", he told AFP.

Jasmin Stadler, a 34-year-old shop owner and Braunau native, said it would have been interesting to put Hitler's birth in the house in a "historic context", explaining more about the house.

She also slammed the 20-million-euro ($24-million) cost of the rebuild.

- 'Bit of calm' -

But others are in favour of the redesign of the house, which many years ago was rented by the interior ministry and housed a centre for people with disabilities before it fell into disrepair.

Wolfgang Leithner, a 57-year-old electrical engineer, said turning it into a police station would "hopefully bring a bit of calm", avoiding it becoming a shrine for far-right extremists.

"It makes sense to use the building and give it to the police, to the public authorities," he said.

The office of Braunau's conservative mayor declined an AFP request for comment.

Throughout Austria, debate on how to address the country's Holocaust history has repeatedly flared.

Some 65,000 Austrian Jews were killed and 130,000 forced into exile during Nazi rule.

K.Torres--SFF