Austrian MPs have approved the expropriation of the house where Hitler was born, ending years of bitter legal wrangling, but it was unclear Thursday what will now happen to the building. A large majority approved the new law late Wednesday, submitted by the government in a bid to stop the dilapidated house in the northern town of Braunau am Inn from becoming a neo-Nazi shrine.
The owner, local resident Gerlinde Pommer - who has been renting the premises to the Austrian state since 1972 - will receive an unspecified amount in compensation under the legislation. But the fate remains uncertain of the otherwise unremarkable yellow corner house in Braunau's quaint historic centre where the future Nazi dictator came into the world on April 20, 1889.
In October, Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka said it would be "torn down" to make place for a new building to be used by a charity, citing recommendations from an expert committee. But several of the 13-member panel were quick to deny that the commission had backed Sobotka's push to bulldoze the building at Number 15 Salzburger Vorstadt Street. "A demolition would amount to negating Austria's Nazi past," the experts said in a joint statement in October.