Austria to use Hitler birth home as charity headquarters

Austrian government officials have decided to transform the home where Adolf Hitler was born into a base for a charity, not tear down the property as some demanded.

Thursday’s decision came a day after lawmakers overwhelmingly approved an Interior Ministry bill to dispossess the owner, who had refused to sell the empty building in Braunau am Inn, a town on Austria’s border with Germany.

Provincial governor Josef Puehringer said destroying the yellow corner house at Number 15 Salzburger Vorstadt Street, located right in Braunau’s historic center, would have fueled accusations of “tearing down a piece of burdensome history.”