The Associated Press is reporting that the Austrian town of Braunau, population 16,600, is faced with a bit of a predicament: what to do with the house where Adolf Hitler was born.  The Renaissance-era abode, which has been rented by Austria’s Interior Ministry since 1972, was home to a “workshop for the mentally handicapped” until the workshop found new digs last year, leaving the Hitler House vacant. 

It seems that Braunau mayor Johannes Waidbacher created a bit of a kerfuffle with his initial proposal.  When he suggested turning it into an apartment building, he was “accused of trying to bury memories of the Nazi past.”  Hmm, maybe that’s an idea—bury the house under a new condo building?

Then again, even if you put a new living space on the spot, it might still attract some undesirables.  As one town councilor told the AP, “most visitors are not normal tourists but neo-Nazis stopping to pay homage to Hitler, even though he spent only the first few months of his life in the building.”  “These are certainly people we don’t want here,” town council member Harry Buchmayr is quoted as saying.  And on a related note, a graveyard in nearby Leonding recently removed the tombstone of Hitler’s parents, which had also become a vacation destination for neo-Nazis.  No word as to whether Nadja Drygalla went there on her honeymoon…

Alas it seems the owner of the building, who chooses to remain anonymous, doesn’t want any kind of commemoration on the property—whether positive or negative.  The AP notes that “The owner refused a request by Braunau officials to let the city mount a sign on the house warning of the evils of the Nazi past.”  Sounds like that would only attract more non-normal tourists, anyways…

I may not have any political connections in Austria, but my solution would be to turn it into a Jewish deli with a gay brothel in the back and the offices of the local communist party (because they apparently still have one in Austria) on the second floor.  I couldn’t think of a better way to piss on Hitler’s ideology!