V The Austrian house where Hitler was born is to become a police station in an effort to end years of debate over how to prevent it becoming a pilgrimage site for neo-Nazis.
Architects will be invited to submit plans to redesign the building in the town of Braunau am Inn, on the border with Germany.
Austria’s interior ministry said in a statement that on Tuesday that it will house the local police force’s offices.
“The house’s future use by the police should send an unmistakable signal that this building will never again evoke the memory of National Socialism,” said Wolfgang Peschorn, the interim interior minister.
Austria currently has a provisional government of civil servants as efforts continue to form a coalition after a parliamentary election two months ago.
Rotraut Staiger, a resident who has lived in the town for 53 years, told AFP that the house still attracted plenty of attention.
“Before, on his (Hitler’s) birthday on April 20, lots of people used to come and light candles and place flowers,” he said. “All of that stopped. Now people come to take pictures.”
Another resident, Johann Wolf, said he would prefer the house to become a community centre.
“Lebenshilfe [a local charity] takes care of disabled people and it would have been the best of messages, in light of the fact that these people were wiped out at the time, to turn the birthplace into something which values human lives,” he told the agency.
The competition to redesign Hitler’s birth home will be open to architects from across the European Union.
Austria’s interior ministry said public officials would pick the winning design in the first half of next year.
Former channcelor Sebastian Kurz’s People’s Party won the most seats in September’s election. He said last week that he planned to begin formal coalition talks with the Greens.
If a deal is agreed it will be the first time the left-wing party has entered government in Austria.