Austrian authorities opened a police station Wednesday in the building where Adolf Hitler was born, completing a years-long effort to prevent the site from becoming a destination for neo-Nazi pilgrims.
The extensively renovated structure in Braunau am Inn now houses the district police headquarters. Officials said assigning the property to law enforcement was intended to strip it of its symbolic appeal to extremists.
The 17th-century building had remained vacant since 2011 before the Austrian government expropriated it following a dispute with its former owner. An expert commission recommended administrative or social use for the space, cautioning that converting it into a museum could attract extremists regardless of institutional mission, while noting that demolition would erase an important historical site.
The building's exterior has been refurbished. A memorial stone outside remains, inscribed: "For peace, freedom and democracy. Never again Fascism. Millions of dead remind us."
Hitler, born in Austria, championed the country's annexation by Germany, which occurred through the 1938 Anschluss.