29 August 2023

How to recycle Hitler's birth-home safely?

Braunau am Inn is on the lower river Inn where it borders the German state of Bavaria, 160 ks from Linz and 60 km from Salzburg. Adolf Hitler was born there in 1889 and although his fam­ily moved after 3 years, the family link to the 3-storey building left a per­manent mark.

Hitler's empty birth home, 2000
Wiki

The Third Reich later turned the house into a cultural centre. Amer­ican soldiers prevented it from being ruined in 1945, and it briefly housed a con­centration camps exhibit.

For decades after WW2, the official position was that Austrians were the first VICTIMS of the Nazi regime . An inn when Hitler’s family rented space later housed a public lib­r­ary, bank and later a high school. And when the building was rented by the Austrian Republic, they won heritage protection as part of the historic city centre. At that stage the building housed a charity for years, operating as a day centre and workshops for disabled people.

It’s not uncommon that communities in many countries prefer collective amnesia to a critical approach to own their history. There are cases of delib­er­ate dest­ruction of uncomfortable material remains of an awful era.

A retired lo­cal woman bought the proper­ty which Austria’s Federal Interior Min­is­try has been renting. Some sugges­ted turning the building into a mus­eum or international peace-site. Others have called for it to be torn down entirely. Fortunately the building hadn’t gained major sig­nificance as a pilg­rimage site for neo-Nazis, and the town plac­ed a gr­anite boul­d­er from Mauthausen Camp front of house with anti-Fascist lines in 1989.

Yet the house’s future function divided those who wanted to highlight its past and those who wanted to delete Brau­nau’s inglorious his­t­ory. Mayor Joh­an­­nes Waidbacher upset people by proposing in a newspaper to change the house into a stan­d­ard residence. “You have to ask whether another Hol­o­caust symbol makes sense, given there are already many here. We are stig­m­atised any­way. Hitler spent 3 years in the city, not the most formative phase of his life. Braunau is thus not prepared to take re­s­­ponsibility for WW2’s outbreak”.

Maut­hau­sen memorial stone with peace message
Wiki

Waidbacher then backtracked a bit. “This house can never be all­ow­ed to become a shrine for die-hards, but in the end the decis­ion is up the Interior Ministry and the owner”. The private owner refused to sell or renovate, fearing it could become a neo-Nazi shrine; she received payment from the Austrian government to keep it vacant.

The Austrian government’s preference urged historian Andreas Mais­lin­g­er to lobb­y for years, prop­osing an int­er­national place of tolerance, recon­cil­iation, un­derstanding. Mais­linger wanted to turn the prop­erty into a state-owned House of Res­p­on­sib­ility that would become an inter­n­at­­ion­al meeting place for young people. The centre could refl­ect­ on Aus­t­rians’ hist­ory, co­or­dinate social pro­jects and host work­shops on specific projects. Thus small Braunau would be­come a place of inter­national understand­ing. Young people from abroad could study their countries’ his­t­ory, free of “victim” and “perp­etrator” concepts, without ignoring true hist­ory. Instead of neut­ral­ising the hist­or­ical site, he wanted to invest it with a new mean­ing.

Maislinger’s plan gai­ned broad supp­ort, in­cluding from the Int­erior Ministry. The mayor of the town said “It is a difficult sub­ject. But a House of Re­s­ponsib­ility is a reasonable idea. The altern­at­ive plan for the buil­d­ing included demol­it­ion and the const­ruction of luxury flats failed to gain much sup­port.

Yet the house still attracts neo-Nazis from around Europe, some­times on Hit­l­er’s Annual Birthday Trip. Maislinger reported the house will only lose its appeal for such people when it stands as a just symbol against Nazism.”

Neutralisation of the birth-house was a missed chance for Aust­ria to expel one terror of Austrian history. Recently a group of young architects reopened a critique on the building’s transf­or­m­ation and an al­tern­at­ive future commission. Will the project succeed in reversing the conscious choice of oblivion? Austrian authorities did consid­er turning the Adolf Hitler birth-house into a museum.

After a long process to expropriate the house from its owner, the Federal Government rec­ent­ly ended the specul­ation. From the building’s exterior, there was nothing outstanding about the vacant 3-storey yellow house. Its pastel-coloured paint were blotchy, and its windows empty. The Austrian Interior Min­is­try released the winning arch­it­­ec­tural de­sign for the site; offic­ials also sug­gested removing the memorial stone in front of the house to Vienna as a warning re dangers of Fasc­ism. Their ul­t­im­ate goal was to neut­ral­ise the hist­ory and symb­olism of the house, pre­­vent­ing it becoming a pilgrimage site for neo-Nazis.

The Braunau house was clearly tied to Hitler, but it had NO relationship to his crimes. While it made sense to turn death camps into tributes to millions of dead, the ideal fate for the Braunau house was less obv­ious to many locals. Thus the Au­s­­trian government’s push to neutralise Hitler’s birth-house rai­sed diff­ic­ult questions about the country’s engagement with its past. Brau­nau His­­torical Associat­ion said these debates have an impact on the town it­self, which has long been de­fined by its connection to the Nazi dictat­or. Most Aust­rians only know that Braunau is where Hitler was born.

Lovely central square of Braunau-Am-Inn
Wiki

The building was already protected by law as an architect­ural monum­ent bec­ause the original dated back centuries. In 2019, the Austrian govern­ment de­cid­ed to convert it into the head­quarters of the city’s Police Depart­ment, to prevent political exploitation by far-rightists. Following a comp­et­it­ion’s winning ar­ch­it­ectural plans, the building was re­s­t­or­ed to its original design and the Maut­hau­sen memorial stone was removed. The Chancellor supported this de­cision since the transformation of the building into a Police St­ation was a sign of democracy, human rights and anti-rac­ism. This neut­ral­isation decision also came from a des­ire to erase from mem­ory a place that was rem­inis­c­ent of Aust­ria’s Nazi past. Is there a sense of clos­ure in Braun­au? Probably not.

Next I will examine a city that IS managing to neutralise its house of horrors. 





26 comments:

Gattina said...

I have never seen or heard of Hitler's birth house ! Of course in Germany when I went to school in the 50th in the history books the second WW was mentioned exactly with one §. From our teachers probably many had a "black" past. So it was all swept under the rug ! Very interesting for me, the house looks rather elegant. I would have just put a metal plate on the house saying "Adolf Hitler was born here". and eventually make modern art exhibitions in it. He hated modern art so much!

Hels said...

Gattina

I think all historians are careful about what they teach to school students, either because 1. they are truly not aware of accurate material or because 2. they are VERY aware and choose not to discuss it. For example while I learned a great deal about hideous slave history in the U.S, I learned nothing about appalling treatment of Australian indigenous communities.

jabblog said...

Whatever is decided, there will be dissenters. 'The evil that men do lives after them.'

Parnassus said...

Hello Hels, I would be in favor of tearing it down. Although the ground floor looks intriguingly Egyptian Revival (or at least influenced), the building is really not that distinguished, and the potential harm that could come from people making it a focal point is not worth the risk. Most disaster houses are razed, although there are a few exceptions like the Lizzie Borden house in Fall River, Massachusetts and the Amityville Horror House, which at least has been remodeled, but these are houses of family tragedies, not the place that unleashed the worst monster the world has ever known. Those suggestions along the lines of making it a museum to "punish" Hitler are a bit weak, and might even encourage the crazies. Best to put it out of its misery.
--Jim

Fun60 said...

It is a dilemma. Whatever it becomes I can still see it being a place of pilgrimage.

DUTA said...

The birth home in the picture looks rather nice.
I don't care about what the austrians decide to do with the house. I'm not in favor of hating a building or a language (german) because of Hitler. It's done quite a lot and it's childish.
As far as I know, Hitler was a mediocre painter and was not accepted to art school. Perhaps the rejection made him the evil force that he was, as He turned to hpolitics - and the rest is history.

Jo-Anne's Ramblings said...

I knew none of this so found it quite interesting, I watch a lot of doco's on Hitler and WW11 but still this was new to me

roentare said...

An outstanding post. I find it a good act to convert this dwelling into a police headquarters

My name is Erika. said...

Or course it is not the houses fault Hitler was born there, but I find it disturbing that neo-Nazi's go back there as part of a shrine to Hitler. Knowing that, I might say it should be torn down, although I like the peace museum. But you'll still have the building as shrine with it there. Thanks for this interesting read.

Andrew said...

I think turning it into a police station is a good idea. It is far less likely to become a focus as a police station.

hels said...

jabblog
that has always been true. Think of the evil, mass murdering Roman emperors like Nero and Caligula whose names still create nightmares.

hels said...

Parnassus
Why would a place like Lizzie Borden's House be opened to the public in exactly the way it was left after the murders? Surely not to honour the murderer? Perhaps it was to remind future generations of the horror of evil.

hels said...

Fun60
If pilgrimage means to a memorial of honour, then I sadly agree with you. And not just to Austrian pilgrims. Look at Hitler' Annual Birthday Trip :(

Hels said...

DUTA

I don't hate the building because of its Hitler connection or for any other reason. I actually think it is a lovely old piece of architecture that well deserves to be protected.

But a city must retain a critical approach to its own history and is obligated to neut­ral­ise fear-producing hist­or­ical sites.

Hels said...

Jo-Anne

the Braunau story was very new to me too, even though the question of what to do with Nazi structures has troubled authorities for decades in a number of different countries.

Remember the Führerbunker in Berlin which was retained intact, but buried out of sight. Few will forget that Hitler died there, but as a plaque was visible outside, future generations will remember the site even more fearfully.

Hels said...

Andrew

I originally feared that a large police station might remind citizens about military and police brutality during the Third Reich. But the more I think about it, the more I agree with you. In modern Germany and Austria, police are probably the best symbol of equality, justice and protection from terrorism.

mem said...

In the end it is a building , any meaning it has, is put on it by humans . I think Turning into a police station is a good idea .The police would be sure to get rid of any Nazi site pilgrims and it would live on as a symbol of a functioning society . Pulling it down smacks of hiding under the doona
I do feel sorry for the people of Braunau as they should be able to move on while remembering that their town was where this monster happened to be born . I would hope that the last few years of watching the rise of far right ideology and strong men around the world brings home to us that this can happen anywhere if people allow it. We are all responsible for Hitler and his like if we sit back and don't vote or care about what is going on in our communities.

Hels said...

mem

I am not sure at all that the last few years of watching the rise of far right ideology and strong men around the world will bring insight for the future. The numbers of dictators may be going up, not down. Look at "Dictators Around the World 2023"
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/dictatorship-countries

President Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai of Afghanistan
President Abdelmadjid Tebboune of Algeria
President João Lourenço of Angola
President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan
King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain
Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh
President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus
Sultan Haji Waddaulah of Brunei
President Évariste Ndayishimiye of Burundi
Prime Minister Hun Sen of Cambodia
President Paul Biya of Cameroon
President Faustin Archange Touadera of the Central African Republic
President Idriss Deby of Chad
President Xi Jinping of China
President Félix Tshilombo Tshisekedi of the Democratic Republic of the Congo
President Denis Sassou Nguesso of the Republic of the Congo
President Miguel Diaz-Canel of Cuba
President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh of Djibouti
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt
President Teodoro Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea
President Isaias Afwerki of Eritrea
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia
President Albert-Bernard Bongo of Gabon
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei of Iran
President Barham Salih of Iraq
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev of Kazakhstan
President Bounnhang Vorachith of Laos
President Nouri Abusahmain of Libya
Min Aung Hlaing of Myanmar
President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua
President Kim Jong-un of North Korea
Sultan Qaboos bin Said Al-Said of Oman
Emir Tamin Al Thani of Qatar
President Vladimir Putin of Russia
President Paul Kagame of Rwanda
King Abdullah Aziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia
President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed of Somalia
President Salva Kiir Mayardit of South Sudan
President Abdel Fattah Abdelrahman Burhan of Sudan
King Mswati III of Eswatini/Swaziland
President Bashar al-Assad of Syria
President Emomalii Rahmon of Tajikistan
Chairman Losang Jamcan of Tibet
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey
President Gurbanguly Berdimuhammedow of Turkmenistan
President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda
King Sheikh Khalifa Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates
President Shavkat Mirziyoyev of Uzbekistan
President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela
President Nguyễn Phú Trọng of Vietnam
President Brahim Ghali of Western Sahara
President Abd Al-Hadi of Yemen

Luiz Gomes said...

Boa tarde de quinta-feira. Matéria muito forte. Desejo um mês de setembro com muita paz e saúde.

Hels said...

Luiz

Yes. Dealing with an ugly past in public sites is becoming an issue everywhere. Sometimes the question might deal with a historical sculpture of eg a powerful slave owner. Sometime it will be a large sign in front of a terrible prison camp.

Liam Ryan said...

Hello Hels

Very interesting.

I think that all cities and towns have both aspects of light and shade in their history. I don't think its fair for the citizens of Braun­au to be 'defined' by the Hitler connection. It's all quite arbitrary. Ultimately, it's an aspect of history - as all the actors are long dead - and we have a duty to educate ourselves about that history, in an objective way. I don't buy into the notion that a given generation has to atone for the previous, or make pious statements etc. We'd do well to understand the times and make an effort to contextualize decisions. I generally dislike talk of demolishing buildings & burning things, so I think the idea of a useful purpose, like a police station is a pretty good.

Hels said...

Liam

I also don't buy into the notion that a past generation has to atone for their previous world.. in any case, those individuals are largely long gone. And I certainly agree that demolishing protected buildings would be unacceptable. However the city's ul­t­im­ate goal was to neut­ral­ise the hist­ory and symb­olism of the house, pre­­vent­ing it becoming a pilgrimage site for neo-Nazis.

The police station is starting to sound a very good compromise.

mem said...

Yes I agree with you but I also think that the fight against "the Strong Man " mentality seems to be a never ending process and has been with us forever . we probably have the means as never before to combat it but do we have the will? I think that the period after the war was a real flowering of liberal democracy after the agony of the attempts by dictators to inflict their will on democracy . The mistake that too many of us are making , is that things will continue to improve, when in actual fact there is a decline in commitment to democracy and a lack of understanding that only with ALL of us taking individual responsibility , can we maintain what so many have died for . it is truly alarming to see what is going on inside the Republican party and the ease with which Governor De Santis in particular is ready to burn books, and wind back reforms giving people the choice to be who they are . he would have been a signed up Nazi in the 1930s Germany . many of those now spouting the right ideology would have been .That so many think this is a good idea what I find very disturbing .

Hels said...

mem

Agreed. The mistake that we make in the Western democracies, at least, is that things will continue to improve, when in actual fact there is very little move to democracy. But the idea of citizens taking individual responsibility is fraught with danger.

Just to take some examples, the people who protested against Brasil's dictatorship (1964-85) were tortured, exiled without their families, or executed.

Viktor Orban's speech was in a region of Rumania which has a large Hungarian community. "European peoples should be free to mix with one another but that mixing with non-Europeans created a mixed-race world. We do not want to become peoples of mixed race", he said.

Abortion is illegal in Alabama and women who seek one might be charged with infant murder. Now Alabama’s attorney general has argued in a court filing that his state has the authority to bring conspiracy charges against groups who help women travel out of the state for an abortion. I would not stand near an Alabaman border, just to be charged with conspiracy :(

U.S.News said...

BRAUNAU AM INN, Austria (AP) — Work started Monday on turning the house in Austria where Adolf Hitler was born in 1889 into a police station, a project meant to make it unattractive as a site of pilgrimage for people who glorify the Nazi dictator.

The Austrian government argues that having the police, as the guardians of civil liberties, move in is the best use for the building. There has been criticism of the plan, yet the police are expected to occupy the premises in early 2026.

By Associated Press, Oct. 2, 2023.

Hels said...

Many thanks. The very many options that have faced Hitler's birth house have been debated for ages, yet you mentioned the ongoing criticisms of the final plan. Does it means that the police station will be fully accepted when it opens in early 2026? Or do you fear that demonstrations will rebuild a mem­ory for a building redolent of Aust­ria’s Nazi past?