The Austrian government inaugurated a police station on Wednesday in the building at Salzburger Vorstadt 15 in Braunau am Inn, where Adolf Hitler was born in 1889. The conversion, which cost approximately €20 million and was completed three years behind schedule, is intended, according to the interior ministry, to “neutralise” the site and prevent it from serving as a gathering point for neo-Nazis. The building now houses around 50 officers and will also function as a training centre for human rights, with the whitewashed façade deliberately rendered unrecognisable from its earlier appearance.

Austrian officials framed the move as a confrontation with history. Interior Minister Gerhard Karner stated that the house would become “a place of democracy, the rule of law, security, freedom and human dignity,” while Braunau’s mayor, Johannes Waidbacher, said the opening showed the town “confronting its history” and “assuming responsibility.” A memorial stone from the Mauthausen concentration camp, inscribed “Never again fascism,” remains on the pavement outside. The government’s historical commission had recommended a charitable or administrative use; a police station was chosen after a social-welfare organisation declined to occupy the building, fearing it would be used as a political fig leaf.

Critics, however, argue that the decision fails to address the site’s historical burden. The Mauthausen Committee, Austria’s main Holocaust survivors’ association, called a police station inappropriate, noting that police forces were instruments of Nazi crimes. Robert Eiter of the committee said the conversion would not reduce neo-Nazi pilgrimages, adding that “the world will not forget where the worst mass murderer in history was born.” Local historian Florian Kotanko and citizen initiatives have long advocated for an explicit educational or memorial use, and some residents expressed disappointment that the building was not turned into a centre for peace and tolerance. A 2023 survey cited by local media indicated that only 6% of respondents supported the police station plan.

The building’s fate had been contested for decades. After the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938, the party turned it into a cultural centre. Post-war, it served as a library, school, and workshop for people with disabilities before falling empty in 2011. The last private owner blocked renovations and resisted expropriation, which was finally enforced through a special law in 2016 and upheld by the Supreme Court in 2019. The debate unfolds against a backdrop of rising far-right support: the Freedom Party (FPÖ), founded by former Nazis, polls at around 38%. The police station is now operational, but no further commemorative measures—such as an information plaque—have been announced, leaving the long-term impact on neo-Nazi activity an open question.