In Adolf Hitlers Hometown, Trying to Overcome a

Legacy of Evil

Written by MSN News:

BRAUNAU AM INN, Austria Days after this city across the river from Bavaria surrendered
to the United States Army in May 1945, a group of German soldiers sought to flatten a threestory house here that had served as a Nazi pilgrimage site and shrine since the late 1930s.
The American troops turned them back. But in protecting the building in the historic city center
they managed to cement an unwanted legacy for the citizens of Braunau am Inn. Who, after all,
wants a constant reminder in their midst that they live in the city where Adolf Hitler was born?
Many people here have other ideas about what this city on the river Inn should be known for.
Peace. The birthplace of a hymn writer. The health of its local industry. But to turn the corner,
they must first deal with the house.
When the troops stopped the destruction of the three-story building on Salzburger Vorstadt street,
they paved the way for a dispute that still rages, though it may come to a head soon.
Since December, the Austrian government has been pressing for a solution for the vacant
building, which is privately owned but rented by the government. It has offered to buy the house,
and is exploring whether it would be possible to dispossess the owner if she continues to balk at
necessary renovations. The condition of the building is making it difficult to find a tenant.
Over the years the house has served as a makeshift museum, a school and a library. For more
than three decades an organization offering support and integration assistance for disabled people
used it to run a shop and a workshop. But the group moved out in 2011, and the government
again faced the question of what to do with the building.
The problem is not a lack of ideas or initiative.

Why cant refugees live there? said Georg Wojak, commissioner for Braunau and the
surrounding district, when asked about the future of the birth house. We dont need this house,
but that would be an appropriate use for it.
Andreas Maislinger, a historian from Innsbruck, has spent years trying to drum up support for his
idea to establish an international memorial and peace project in the house that would involve
young people and international collaborations, reflecting the unique status of the place.
Braunau is a memorial site in its own category, Mr. Maislinger said. It is not a place where
crimes were committed. No decisions were made here. Nevertheless, we have been preoccupied
with the place for decades.
Braunau is a symbol, he said. It is where evil entered the world.
After the war, the Germans and occupying forces sought to level all sites there directly linked to
Hitler, from the old and new chancellery buildings in Berlin to the Berghof in the Bavarian Alps.
That sentiment is still alive, Mr. Maislinger found out while trying to solicit support for his
project from members of the German Parliament. Gregor Gysi, a leading member of the Left
party, summed it up in his curt response: Either the house should be torn down, or used in such
a way that no neo-Nazis will venture to come near it.
Fears that the house could become a pilgrimage site led the Austrian government in 1972 to take
over the main lease on the building, now owned by Gerlinde Pommer, a descendant of the family
that first built it. It had a tavern on the ground level and apartments on the upper floors, one of
which was rented by Hitlers parents before his birth in 1889.
The current owner has refused for years to allow necessary renovations to be carried out, which
drove away the organization for the disabled three years ago. Her reluctance has also made it
hard to find a tenant who meets the requirements of using it for administrative, educational or
social services purposes. In the meantime, the Austrian government continues to pay her about
4,800 euros, or $5,600 a month, in rent.
Mayor Johannes Waidbacher of Braunau sighs when asked about the house. He would rather
concentrate on the expansion of the aluminum factory that serves as a backbone of local industry,
or efforts to revive the downtown area, where Hitlers birth house is one of several vacant
buildings.
He spent months with the municipal council and others, struggling in vain to come up with a use
of the house that would make everyone the government, the city and the owner happy.
Now, he is sitting tight. There is no point in coming up with further concepts until we see how
the situation develops, Mr. Waidbacher said.

Like many here, the mayor acknowledges the weight of responsibility that goes with the houses
and the citys indisputable, if unwelcome, link to history.
The stigma has long plagued residents. It is hard enough living in a place that alludes to the
Nazis in name braun, German for brown, the color associated with the Nazi Party. Braunau
is not brown, declared a slogan that had tried to improve the citys image.
The latest buzzword in Braunau is peace. Since taking over as commissioner in 2008, Mr.
Wojak has planted dozens of linden trees throughout the district, as symbols of peace. Lesserknown locals with cleaner biographies, like Franz Jgersttter, a Nazi resister, have had parks
named in their honor.
A community effort has been formed around celebrating the birthplace of Franz Xaver Gruber,
the composer of Silent Night, with his own hiking trail bedecked with seven curving bronze
statues one for each continent where this sons song is sung every Christmas Eve.
Braunau residents pass by the houses empty windows or wait at the bus stop at the curb without
so much as a glance at the memorial stone warning in block letters of the dangers of fascism. Yet,
they would like nothing more than to be rid of it.
Some said they wished the Allies had not succeeded in 1945 in stopping a band of loyal Nazis
from razing the building that drew pilgrims since Hitlers earliest days in power. Newspaper
reports from 1937 recount how German troops passing through the city would pay solemn
obeisance at its doors.
As Hitlers fame and influence grew, so did the significance of his birthplace, and Braunaus
association with it. A stamp issued in 1938 for Hitlers 50th birthday featured him standing
before the onion-shaped Gothic dome of the citys St. Stephens Church in the background
beneath the inscription, The Fhrer in his birth city, Braunau.
For decades after World War II, veterans from Austria and neighboring Germany still flocked to
it, especially on Hitlers birthday.
Now the local police say the neo-Nazi scene has dwindled in recent years. The house is under
their constant watch, but problems are rare, they said.
Nevertheless, some here still go to great lengths to avoid what they know is the inevitable. When
asked where he comes from while traveling abroad, Hans Schwarzmayr, a resident, said he
would always say downriver from Salzburg, or about 120 kilometers east of Munich to
avoid naming the city.

If they still didnt get it, then I would give in and say, Braunau, Mr. Schwarzmayr recalled.
The response was always the same, Oh, Hitlers birthplace. Why didnt you say so?