VIENNA
(Reuters) - A suggestion to turn the Austrian house where Adolf Hitler
was born into normal residential space has triggered a debate about how
best to use an empty property still packed with historic baggage decades
after World War Two ended.
The man who became Nazi dictator was born in the house in Braunau
on the Inn, a town near Salzburg on the German border, in April 1889.
His family lived there only three years, but his link to the
three-storey building has left an indelible mark.
A retired local woman now
owns the property, which Austria's federal interior ministry has been
renting since 1972 and has sublet to Braunau.
According to media accounts,
the building - an inn when Hitler's family rented space there - has
housed a library, a bank, classrooms and most recently a charitable
organization's workshop for handicapped people, which moved out a year
ago.
The question of what to do
with it now is exposing splits between those who want to highlight its
past and those who want to turn the page on an inglorious chapter of
local history.
The mayor of Braunau,
Johannes Waidbacher, caused a stir with a newspaper interview in which
he proposed making the house into a standard residence.
[Slideshow: Color photos from inside Hitler's home]
"You have to ask in general
whether another Holocaust memorial makes sense when there are already
many around here," the mayor, born 21 years after the war's end, told
Der Standard.
"We are stigmatized anyway.
Hitler spent the first three years of his life in the city, and it was
certainly not the most formative phase of his life. We as the city of
Braunau are thus not prepared to take responsibility for the outbreak of
World War Two," he was quoted last week as saying.
In a statement on Monday,
Waidbacher rowed back a bit, saying "this house can never be allowed to
become a shrine for die-hards" but also pointing out the city had a
limited say.
"In the end the decision is up the interior ministry and the owner," he added.
An interior ministry
spokesman said no decisions had been made yet, adding the most important
thing was preventing neo-Nazi "mischief" from going on there. He said
there were no plans to let the property be used as a residence.
The owner's identity has not been published.
Andreas Maislinger, a local
historian and political scientist, has lobbied for years to turn the
property into a state-owned "house of responsibility" that would serve
as an international meeting place for young people.
The centre could offer
reflections on Austrians' history, coordinate social projects and host
workshops on projects such as ensuring the rights of Roma in Europe, he
said.
"Thus the small city of Braunau would become a place of international understanding," he suggested.
"Braunau is a symbol because
Adolf Hitler was born there, and the fact that this house has a certain
symbolic significance means you have to handle it properly," he said.
Nazi Germany annexed Austria
in 1938, and a debate still smoulders on whether Austrians were Hitler's
first victims or willing accomplices.
(Reporting by Michael Shields, editing by Paul Casciato)
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