Talk Elections

Debate reignited over what to do with house in Austria where Hitler was born

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With its thick walls, huge arched doorway and deep-set windows, this 500-year-old house near the town square in Braunau, Austria, would normally be prime property. Because Adolf Hitler was born there, it has instead become a huge headache for town officials.

BRAUNAU, Austria -- Living space in Braunau is scarce, but a Renaissance-era building stands empty in this postcard-pretty Austrian town because of the sinister shadow cast by a former resident: Adolf Hitler.

With its thick walls, huge arched doorway and deep-set windows, the 500-year-old house near the town square normally would be prime property. Because Hitler was born there, it has become a huge headache for town officials forced into deciding what to do with a landmark so linked to evil.

The building was used most recently as a workshop for mentally handicapped people, which some saw as atonement for the killings of tens of thousands of disabled people by the Nazi regime. But that tenant moved out last year.

The departure reignited debate on what to do with the house that burst from the town hall into the public domain last week after the mayor declared that he preferred creating apartments over turning the building into an anti-Nazi memorial.

"We are already stigmatized," Johannes Waidbacher told the Austrian daily Der Standard. "We, as the town of Braunau, are not ready to assume responsibility for the outbreak of World War II."

That sparked a storm of criticism, with Waidbacher accused of trying to bury memories of the Nazi past.

Stung by the criticism, Waidbacher has since stepped back, saying he can conceive of "all possible uses" for the building.

On Thursday, Waidbacher expressed surprise at the vehement reaction to his comments, saying he did not mean to make light of the situation.

It's unclear who else might want to take up residence in the house. Austria's Interior Ministry has rented the house since 1972 from the owner, a woman in her 60s who refuses to be identified publicly. The ministry has been careful to sublet only to tenants with no history of admiring Hitler.

http://www.freep.com/article/20120928/NEWS07/309280094/Debate-reignited-over-what-to-do-with-house-in-Austria-where-Hitler-was-born

Ahh, that is a tough one.  The mayor will be damned no matter what action he takes.  My first thought was "tear it down", but that's not really an option (unless it was dilapidated).  I guess the best thing would be to donate it (or really cheap lease) to another group of underprivileged types.

It also looks like the wooden doors of this building have been in there for the last 300 or so years ... :P

Everything else looks to be renovated and at least from the past century ... :P

Tear it down and turn into a garden.

2 words: Hitler museum

Tear down entire town to make room for Hitler Memorial Fun Park to be built around house.

Move it with meticulous care - every brick and brack - to Arizona.  Then put in a parking lot in its place.

I actually like the appartment or office option best.

As the article says, real estate is not cheap in the city and so it should be renovated and turned into appartments or into a company/office area. There shouldn't be so much fuss about it, houses with murderers are sold all the time (even though the background check for people with Hitler fondness should remain).

Depends on the murderer and on the house. 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester is most definitely no longer standing...

map link (http://maps.google.de/maps?q=25+Cromwell+Street,+Gloucester&hl=de&ie=UTF8&ll=51.861832,-2.243352&spn=0.000309,0.000871&sll=50.121212,8.636564&sspn=0.327989,0.891953&hnear=25+Cromwell+St,+Gloucester+GL1,+Vereinigtes+K%C3%B6nigreich&t=h&z=21&layer=c&cbll=51.861832,-2.243352&panoid=yYRMywG9Ka0AjYaEYEEPqw&cbp=12,302.34,,0,11.83)

Tear down the entire town, obviously. But seriously, treat it like any other building. And at its age, it should'nt be torn simply because of how old it is.

Who gives a damn, Hitler isn't and wasn't some kind of supernatural evil, whose birth tainted the
house forever. He was just a man like everybody else, yes he was behind some of the worst act
of brutality in the 20th century, but that doesn't change the first part.
As for what to use the house for, avoid neo-nazis using it, but beside that use it for apartments
or a museum.

Let the owner decide what to do with it. If the government owns it (I don't know if they own it or not), they should just rent the space out as offices, and make a small memorial inside for Hitlers victims.

I have two ideas, one practical and the other ironic:

1. Find some eccentric rich person who collects WWII memorabilia and sell it to him.
2. See if Israel might like to open an embassy in it.

Apartment complex, with every tenant being given the full time job of writing new Downfall parodies.

Yes, Dibble's second idea, or a museum for Jewish culture.

Technically would be a consulate, but great idea actually.

Unless the neo-Nazis turn as violent as certain Muslims, in which case you would be more than willing to appease them to avoid bloodshed.

Tear it down and leave the land barren.

Let us tear a 500 year old house down because we don't like a guy born in it. Afterward we can have a nice little public book burning.

Bury it at sea.

forget about it.

Its a historical building which should certainly not be teared down, but be used for modern families to live in. The house is not haunted or anything. Its a pseudo problem.

People not smart enough to code their post properly should be banned.

Tear it down completely, and build a holocaust memorial museum in its place. 

Some sort of memorial or museum. I doubt people would want to say they live in the Hitler House.

There has to be someone who does.

Yes, but do you want such a person living there?

What about all of the normal and decent people who were also born in this house over the last 300 years?

???

I wouldn't care, if the rent was affordable and the facilities up to date, I would not care who had lived in the house before.

I think it would be appropriate, and deliciously ironic.

Tear it down and make it a memorial to the victims of fascism.

Of course one thing to remember is that the issue is, presumably, the site rather than the building. As in, even if you razed the place to the ground there would still be a problem, so to speak.

Obviously dig down to the bedrock and eject the offending earth into space. Take an Israeli hill and put its earth into the resultant hole.

It looks like 7 people on here like this idea:

http://www.timesofisrael.com/russian-mk-wants-to-buy-hitlers-first-home-so-he-can-destroy-it

Don't Tear this home down just let it stand 

It's actually crazy though, to think that tearing it down would solve anything. The house has historical value so should be preserved. A museum to fascist resistance, or something else that would change the intent of the building from habitation to remembrance would be preferable. Apartments standing on the same site seems like a counter-productive plan, the nature of the site remains without any educational/memorial aspect. You'd still have people coming to the site for the same reasons, might as well educate them at the same time.

Demolish it.  Period.

Destroying a beautiful old house because of one of its former inhabitants is the height of stupidity and lack of respect for cultural values.

I'd turn it into a completely normal townhouse indistinguishable from any other house other than a small plaque commemorating a notorious former tenant. The past should be remembered but not dwelt upon.

I disagree.  It is the birthplace of one of the most evil minds in the history of the world.

It is probably a shrine to Nazis, so I say, simply demolish it.

Why tear it down? It wasn't the house which committed mass murder.

I'm with Winfield here. With the symbolic value it has, tearing it down is the best solution.

A solution has now been agreed on:

The building will be completely renovated and in the lower section of the house, the "Volkshilfe" - which is an institution that provides social services for people will open a branch - while in the upper floors the "Volkshochschule" (something like a community college, adult education center) will establish studying rooms for adults and seminar & presentation rooms.

So, those who voted for "option 2" are closest to reality ... ;)

Good to hear common sense prevailed over the "symbolism" crowd.

I still think it should be made into a memorial/Jewish cultural center in honor of the victims of Hitler, but I am glad the building is going to stand.

This


And this

There's too many of those.

Renovate the house into a holocaust museum.

Well, an exhibition about how the people from Braunau and surroundings reacted to the fact "their son" had become the leader of Germany, what happened after 1938, when Austria became part of Germany, and how they dealt with it after 1945, might actually be interesting and out of the usual.
Otherwise, I agree - holocaust memorials should be where the crimes were committed (concentration camps, collection places, etc.), not at one of the criminal's birthplace (of which there are quite a few more across Germany and Austria).

But a bit of self-reflection might be appropriate. I am pretty sure the town of Braunau acted less restrained between 1933 and 1945.

So there will be one more empty museum.


Seeing that Hitler and the Nazis only came to power in Austria in 1938, I don't think the periode of 1933-38 is really relevant, and as only a few living people was adult or even alive at the time, I don't think much self reflection is really necessary.

P1: You should reflect over what you did in 1938-1945.
P2: Well at the time my Opa and my Oma was going in school together, so what is it really I should reflect over?
P1: you have inherited a collective guilt over your ancestors action at the time.
P2: ....okaaaay... that's a interesting perspective (move away as in a fast walk).

I am not talking about collective guilt here. But people in Braunau might ask themselves why it took only a few days after the "Anschluss" to make Hitler an "Ehrenbürger" (honorary citizen), but until 2011 to officially revoke that decision.

Turn it into a memorial to the millions of people, Jews and non-Jews, that he was responsible for killing, so that people never forget that the man born in that house was one of the most abhorrent and evil dictators in human history.  But keep the house standing as well.

I voted Option 1 by mistake.

Turns out it will be option 4:


https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50482019

I'd give the house to George Soros, just to drive certain people mad.

This don't forget non-jewish victims either. I had relatives who weren't jewish who died, and they are just as important as anyone else!

Well regardless of what they've decided to do with it, I'm just glad that a 500 year old house still standing won't be demolished. There's only so many of those left!

?

What I mean is I agree, we need to make a memorial for Hitler's victims there, but make it about all his victims, not just about Anti-semitism like some in this thread have proposed. My relatives were not Jewish who died at his hands are just as important as that or them too, and non jewish victims should be recognized in said proposed memorial too. One thing that still sticks with me to this day is I went to the Holocaust museum in DC, and the tour guide asked the group can anyone tell me another victim group besides jewish people. And I answered non jewish slavs, and he just flat out said no, which is utter bs since I would be viewed as inferior subhuman trash by nazis. There isnt some massive primary victim group that dwarves the rest. They were about half of the holocaust victims and the largest single victim group of the holocaust and the most hated by the nazis, and a smaller share of the overall casualty count where there were more populous groups who fell victim if including that broader tally. But yeah all the victims deserve recognition under such a proposed memorial. Not just one group like some have proposed in here. No one group is more important than the other, especially when there were other groups who were similar in casualty count, goal of ending them, and level of brutality dealt by Nazis to them. Like for instance don't be forgetting the Romani people too, especially considering their current status.

holy crap man, just admit you missed that bit :)

I am not sure I get what you are saying

FINALLY !


https://www.dw.com/en/austria-unveils-new-design-for-hitlers-birthplace/a-53660920

Tear it down and build a synagogue.

A museum would be more appropriate.

Lots of white nationalists would come on vacation from America to visit that museum. Probably several white nationalists per week on average, forever. That would be "more appropriate" ?

Who cares?  If they turned it into a synagogue it’d just become a target.

I posted above that the house will become a police station, after rebuilding is complete in 2-3 years.

Good luck to the Neo-Nazis who are on a pilgrimage to the Hitler house and then suddenly bump into a police station ... :P

They could build it out of stone so it can't catch fire. German jews aren't going to stop building synagogues and attending them out of fear of nazis in 2020.

Honestly, give ownership to the KPD or Die Linke for the memes.

But I thought Nazis were everywhere! I thought that it was Nazis who stated the riots! Now they're suddenly back in the ash heap of history? You guys are giving me whiplash.

But seriously, Jews don't have a monopoly on the Holacaust. Disabled children (including those like my own brother) were euthanized. Roma were persecuted. You only want it built because you saw that Quinton Tarantino movie. I doubt it'd be the most comfortable place for Jewish people anyway, considering the history.

Turn it into a gay club, to trigger the alt right.

Nazis ARE everywhere, not always in big numbers though. That doesn't mean you live in fear of them and decide where to "be jewish" and "how jewish" based on that fact. Build the synagogue and take some security measures and then move on with your lives. If a nazi attacks, a nazi attacks.

Aren't quite a few of them in the closet though ;)

Why tear down a 500 year old building for something that happened 140 years ago? It’s not like the nurses who delivered him knew what he’d become.