Braunau-am-Inn, Austria – The owner of the house where Adolf Hitler was born wants to put it on the market with a likely asking price of over £2million.
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But the local authority in Braunau-am-Inn, Austria, has vowed to try to find a way of blocking any sale because it fears it could land up in the hands of extreme right-wingers who would turn it into a grotesque shrine to his memory.
The mayor of Braunau, Gerhard Skiba, said ideally the town council would like to purchase it and so control its future fate.
But there is not enough money in the town coffers to buy the property, Salzburger Vorstadt 15.
He says he will appeal to the government in Vienna to help the town purchase the property if the owner goes ahead with the sale.
It was in a room on the first floor of the three-storey, 2,000 square foot house – the ground floor of which was a pub called Gasthof Zum Pommer – that Hitler’s mother Klara gave birth to her infamous son on April 20, 1889.
She and her husband Alois, a stern local customs official, rented a suite of rooms above the pub and continued to live in it until 1892 when they moved to Linz.
Alois, a drunkard, often availed himself of the beer on sale in the saloon downstairs before returning to the family home to abuse his timid wife 24 years his junior.
The house is still owned by the family after which the pub took its name. Owner Gelinde Pommer says she wants to sell because the tenants for the past two decades, handicapped people who worked and lived there under the care of a disabled organization, are moving to more modern premises in January, and she no longer wants to have the responsibility for it.
She has not yet advertised it, but estate agents have suggested it will have an asking price of about £2million. She was not available to comment.
Nothing remains inside the building to indicate its link with Hitler, not even the bedroom where he was born.
It should be knocked down and a Yeshiva built there.
burn it to the ground and don’t build a yshiva and build a holocuast museam
Do you think if this had been the birth place of a monster that had killed the same number of Irish, Italians, Blacks, etc… that it would have been allowed to stand in perfect condition all these many years?
It could be a good place for a Holocaust museum, so that the Austrians and the world doesn’t forget what horror came out of this place.
And the WC could be conveniently located in the same room on the first floor of the house where he was born…
Is there anyone who knows of a donor who could help to start this project? A little bit of money, and then I’m sure that the town and the government in Vienna could be pressured to make the rest happen.
If you’re interested, or know someone who could be, post here.
What should be done is that the house should be burned down, and the wreckage should be left to stay there…or better yet, make it a communal garbage deposit
I predict that Jewish (frum!) tour groups will be outdoing each other to add it to their ‘Tour Austria’ itineraries .