Whitewashing Hitler's Austrian Birthplace

"The aim ​was to prevent any association with Adolf Hitler, so as to strip it of that mystique."

"[That mystique was encouraged by the Nazis' cult of personality around Hitler, under whose rule the] Fuehrer birth house [was an art museum. Hitler only lived there for a few weeks in 1889 before his family moved out]."

Stephan, Mlczoch, head, history department, Austrian interior ministry

 

"I think on the whole, the people of Braunau have accepted it and can live ‌with it." 

"I think it isn't a bad approach but whether it works as we all hope and expect, we'll have to wait and ​see."

Braunau Mayor Johannes Waidbacher 

 

"Every year at the Mauthausen concentration camp memorial there's a ceremony ⁠to say: never again. And in Braunau they're saying: let's forget as soon as possible." 

"The world won't ⁠forget where the worst mass murderer in history was born. Wikipedia won't change its entries."

"[There will be no reduction in the number of neo-Nazis making] the pilgrimage to Braunau." 

Robert Eiter, Mauthausen Committee/Network Against Racism and Right-Wing Extremism

A new police station will be officially opened in Adolf Hitler's birth house in Braunau am Inn, Austria, on Wednesday. A memorial stone outside reads 'for peace, freedom and democracy, never again fascism, million dead remind.' (Matthias Schrader/The Associated Press)

 

Austria, the country that gave the United Nations one of its successive Secretary Generals, and when it finally became public that he had joined the Hitler Youth during WWII, his reputation plummeted. That didn't stop Austrians from electing him to its presidency in defiance of reports of his Nazi past. Because the United States in its follow-up investigations determined that he might have been involved in war crimes, he was declared persona non grata in the U.S.; an awkward position for a man who from 1972 to 1981 was present in New York, presiding over the United Nations. Nor later in 1986 to 1992 when the president of a purported ally of the U.S. wasn't permitted entry to the United States.

 

Adolf Hitler, born in Austria, led Germany to 'occupy' Austria in the 1938 Anschluss and the Germany army was welcomed with huge Austrian public enthusiastic displays of joy at their annexation. The 17th-century building near the German border where the Fuehrer was born in 1889 has undergone a transformation, at a cost of $32 million refurbishment to turn it into a police station in the town of Braunau Am Inn. The stated purpose was to deter Austria's ascendant far-right from pilgrimages to the Nazi dictator's birthplace.

 

The once-yellow roughcast walls were whitewashed under contract by the Austrian architecture firm Marte. Above the entrance now hangs a police sign. A memorial stone with the inscription: "For Peace, Freedom and Democracy. Never Again Fascism, Millions of Dead Warn", remains dutifully in its place on the pavement before the renovated building.  

 

Austrian police officers stand in front of the new station. (Matthias Schrader/The Associated Press)

 

 Following Hitler's annexation of Austria, 65,000 Austrian Jews were murdered, 130,000 forced into exile. The far-right political party FPOe founded by former Nazis is currently Austria's most popular political party. The political party has about 37 percent backing by Austrian voters, reveals polling aggregator Europe Elects.

 

The house was owned by the same family from 1912 onward, leased in 1972 to the Austrian state, where it became a centre for disabled people. Its last private owner, Gerlinde Pommer, vetoed any transformation of the house, contesting its expropriation by the state, despite that neo-Nazis frequently flocked to the place where their worshiped hero had been born.

 

Finally, the Supreme Court approved purchase of the 800-square-metre property, three years after a law was passed in 2015 to take control of the dilapidated building. Demolishing the site as an option was out of the question for historians who urged Austria to acknowledge its role in the slaughter of over six million Jews, as well as Roma, gays, the disabled and mentally unfit and political prisoners.

 

Turning the building into a historical memorial risked the likelihood that extremist fascists would continue to visit the site, as to a sacred memorial to the greatness that was the Nazi conquest of Europe. In the end, an commission of experts guided a final decision to make it into a police station insisting the permanent police presence would "clearly show" -- stated the Austrian government -- that no commemoration of Nazism would be acceptable, the site would be "neutralized". 

 

"But that's absurd: humanity will not forget where the worst mass murderer in history was born", charged Robert Eiter, representing an association of escapees from the concentration camp, Mauthausen Committee Austria. 

 

Vehicles are parked outside the building where Adolf Hitler was born, which has been converted into a police station by Austria's government in hopes of preventing it from serving as a place of ‌pilgrimage for neo-Nazis, in Braunau am Inn, Austria, July 16, 2026. REUTERS/Angelika Warmuth

 

 

An Ancient, Epic Battle

"Within the context of Roman acts of war, there are no comparable finds of fighters."

"There are huge battlefields in Germany where weapons were found. But finding the dead, that is unique for the entire Roman history."

Michaela Binder, leader of archeological dig 

"They have various different battle wounds, which rules out execution. It is truly a battlefield."

"The most likely theory at the moment is that this is connected to the Danube campaigns of Emperor Domitian -- that's 86 to 96 AD."

"In the Roman Empire, there were strict burial rituals and precise rules had to be observed even for the time after death."

"Since cremations were common in the European parts of the Roman Empire at the time around 100 AD, body burials are an absolute exception. Finds of Roman skeletons from this period are therefore extremely rare."

Kristina Adler-Wolfl, head, Vienna City Archeological Department 

 

"In Vienna, you are always prepared to encounter Roman traces as soon as you open pavement or soil: after all, Vindobona [the ancient Roman-era name for what would later become Vienna] laid the foundation stone of our city."

"Thanks to numerous archaeological excavations in the area of today's Vienna, a great deal of knowledge is already available, and yet finds always lead to new and surprising findings."

Vienna’s Councillor for Culture and Science, Veronica Kaup-Hasler

People work on the excavation of a Roman mass grave from the end of the 1st century AD, in the Simmering district of Vienna, Austria, Nov. 7, 2024. A. Slonek/Novetus / AP

This archaeological find dating back to the 1st Century, will take its place alongside spectacular archaeological findings of ancient Troy, thanks to the 19th Century perseverance of German businessman-turned-archaeologist, Heinrich Schliemann who succeeded in uncovering the presence of Troy, Mycenae, and Tiryns in Turkey and Greece, against all odds when he was determined to prove that the poet Homer knew of what he wrote and those minutely-described sites existed. 

In Vienna, Austria, construction crews were busy renovating a soccer field in October of 2024, when they came upon an unexpected and quite unprecedented discovery through their excavations. There, before them, lay a pile of intertwined skeletal remains. They had uncovered a mass grave that dated to the 1st-century Roman Empire.

 

Following archaeological analysis, experts from the Vienna Museum offered a public presentation of the gravesite -- that they linked to "a catastrophic event in a military context", amidst evidence of the first known conflict that occurred in the region. 

Archaeological analysis of the remains determined the men were killed in battle

The site in the Vienna neighbourhood of Simmering, revealed the skeletal remains of 129 people. Excavation teams as well, found many dislocated bones. The total number of victims is over 150 individuals, representing a discovery of a type never before found in central Europe.

 

Typically, soldiers during the Roman Empire would be cremated. It was only during the 3rd century that this practise deviated. Each of the skeletons revealed under examination signs of injury. Leading the researchers to the conclusion that the bodies lying in the pit were deposited there hastily. 

All of the victims of deadly warfare found in the pit were male, mostly men aged between 20 to 30 years of age. Surveys indicated robust health prevailed by virtue of finding that signs of good dental health was prevalent among them.

Finding the buried bodies of early Roman soldiers is soldiers is extremely rare

Analysis by Carbon-14 was used to date the skeletal remains to between AD 80 and 130. Those dates, cross-checked against the known history of relics also discovered in the grave, consisting of armour, helmet cheek protectors, and studded nails that distinguished Roman military boots known as caligae.

The archaeological investigations revealed that injuries sustained by swords, spears, daggers and projectile bolts were identified as the causes of death. The expert team of investigators were led to the conclusion that that those who died had been part of an epic battle, an engaged military operation that ended in catastrophe for many.

Broader view of the site at the soccer field where the Roman burial was discovered. (Reiner Riedler/Wien Museum).

A Repulsive Terrorist Attack

A Repulsive Terrorist Attack

"During the last 24 hours, we arrested 14 people,. Now we will find out in the next days if he is part of a broader network or not."

"What we know is that he is a supporter of the Islamic State."

"We all know in our country this is not a fight between Christians or Muslims or Austrians and people from other countries."

Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz

 

"We have brought several special forces units together that are now searching for the presumed terrorists."

"I am therefore not limiting it to an area of Vienna because these are mobile perpetrators."

"[Several] heavily armed and dangerous [attackers are still on the loose with large parts of central Vienna shut down and sealed off in a manhunt]."

Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer

Police cars and ambulances in central Vienna on Monday night.

"We are living in the compound of the synagogue. Upon hearing shots we looked down [from] the windows and saw the gunmen shooting at the guests of the various bars and pubs."

"The gunmen were running around and shooting at least 100 rounds or even more in front of our building."

Rabbi Schlomo Hofmeister, Stadttempel synagogue

 

"I was cleaning up and suddenly I heard shots. A lot of them, from a machine gun. I looked outside, someone ran past and probably shot someone in front of the synagogue."

"He was wearing a white jogging suit or something similar and he kept shooting."

Owner of a restaurant on the Seitenstettengasse, close to the synagogue

Screengrabs of footage appearing on various social media sites showing terrorist attack in Vienna, Nov. 2, 2020. Photo by Screengrab

The attack began at around 8:00 p.m. local time in a central area of Vienna, the Austrian capital. The country  prepared to go back into lockdown, and this night before lockdown, people were out in droves at local bars, hotels and restaurants on the street, in close proximity to the city's central synagogue. It was immediately assumed that the synagogue was the initial target. It might have been, no one can now interrogate the sole attacker, he is dead, one of five who died last night, the four others victims of Fejzulai Kujtim, a 20-year-old Austrian man from the town of St. Poelten, 33 miles west of Vienna. 

 

Immediately the attack began, bedlam prevailed. Six discrete sites were declared to be under attack, each by different gunmen, professionally organized and equipped with high-powered rifles, shooting at random, shouting out 'Allahu Akbar!' as they consigned total strangers to death in their mission to shock and terrorize, and likely avenge the Prophet Mohammad whose image had been mocked in neighbouring France, where two deadly knife attacks had just taken place in the past several weeks stemming from a French teacher using Mohammad cartoons illustratively in a middle-school class on civics and freedom of speech.

 

As the evening wore on it was assumed that the attacker, by then shot dead by police, had an accomplice, perhaps more than one, and whoever they were, they were escaping, armed and dangerous.  Police urged the population to remain indoors, sheltered, that danger stalked anyone unaware and vulnerable out in the open. Borders were closed, a massive search was launched for the co-perpetrator or perpetrators, the henchmen who had been involved in the murder spree alongside Fejzulai Kujtim.

 

Until, finally, it was determined that in all likelihood he had acted alone in a powerful frenzy of religiou-inspired fervour. There was no one else. He also happened to be a convicted felon, imprisoned on a charge of terrorism, he had attempted to leave Austria for Syria to join the Islamic State. While in prison he had undergone deradicalization training and was deemed by authorities to have passed with flying colours, earning him an early release from detention. Presumably, Austrian security is too man-short keeping tabs on its identified extremists to fully cover them all and obviously Eajzulai Kujtim, as a public threat, was overlooked.

 

He had succeeded in wounding another 15 people, among them a police officer, with seven of the total wounded remaining hospitalized in critical condition.Not that the manhunt for possible Islamist collaborators is over; thus far 14 people have been investigated as possible conspirators with the attacker, and are in custody while their suspected links to the atrocity are being probed. The witnesses too were convinced that a number of attackers were involved, steering their excited narratives.

 

Armed police stay in position at the scene of the attack in the Austrian capital.

 

 

Last night the Vienna police tweeted an alert to the general public: "There are several injured persons. We are on site with all available forces. Please avoid all public squares in the city". The army, assured Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, would see to the protection of vulnerable capital sites leaving the police to focus on anti-terror operations. Today is another day. There have been other revelations, chief among them that this was a sole-actor terrorist event. There was but one active shooter. A man with Macedonian-Austrian citizenship, although he was born in Austria.

An empathetic and terrorism-seasoned French President Emmanuel Macron gave his full and unstinting support to Austria; it is debatable whether the compliment had been initiated in reverse weeks earlier. "This is our Europe. Our enemies must know with whom they are dealing. We will not retreat", stated President Macron, of the destructive malevolence of the extremist Islamists harbouring in safety in progressive-minded Europe.

In Austria, as in the United States, private gun ownership is fairly high, though not in competition with U.S. numbers. Although Austria has of late not been the recipient of large-scale terrorist attacks such as Paris, Berlin and London have been vulnerable to in recent years, in August a 32-year-old Syrian refugee was arrested, suspected of trying to attack a Jewish community leader in Graz, one of Austria's larger cities. 

 

Armed police stand outside the Vienna State Opera amid a terrorist attack in the Austrian capital. Photograph: Michael Gruber/Getty Images 

 

 

 

Gangs of thugs in brown shirts owned the streets. They drove around in trucks, flashing their guns and their swastika armbands, hooting at the pretty girls. If they wanted to pick you up or beat you up, they did so with impunity. Anybody who resisted was beaten or killed or taken away to Dachau or Buchenwald or some other concentration camp. (You must understand that at that time, the concentration camps were prisons where opponents of the Nazi regime were detained . . . The inmates were made to work at hard labor and lived in dreadful conditions, but the words 'concentration camp' came to stand for monstrous cruelty and almost certain death. Nobody even imagined there would one day be a death camp like Auschwitz.)

Cheering crowds greet Hitler as he enters Vienna. Austria, March 1938.

— Wide World Photo

How can I describe to you our confusion and terror when the Nazis took over? We had lived until yesterday in a rational world. Now everyone around us -- our schoolmates, neighbours, and teachers; our tradesmen, policemen, and bureaucrats -- had all gone mad. They had been harboring a hatred for us which we had grown accustomed to calling 'prejudice'. What a gentle word that was! What a euphemism! In fact they hated us with a hatred as old as their religion; they were born hating us, raised hating us; and now with the Anschluss, the veneer of civilization which had protected us from their hatred was stripped away.

Jews in Vienna forced to scrub Schuschnigg's slogans off the sidewalk --
www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

On the pavements, protesters had written anti-Nazi slogans. The SS grabbed Jews and forced them at gunpoint to scrub off the graffiti while crowds of Austrians stood around jeering and laughing.

The Nazi radio blamed us for every filthy evil thing in this world. The Nazis called us subhuman and, in the next breath, superhuman; accused us of plotting to murder them, to rob them blind; declared that they had to conquer the world to prevent us from conquering the world. The radio said that we must be dispossessed of all we owned; that my father, who had dropped dead while working, had not really worked for our pleasant flat -- the leather chairs in the dining room, the earrings in my mother's ears -- that he had somehow stolen them from Christian Austria, which now had every right to take them back.

Members of the League of German Girls wave Nazi flags in support of the German annexation of Austria. Vienna, Austria, March 1938.   — Dokumentationsarchiv des Oesterreichischen Widerstandes

Did our friends and our neighbors really believe this? Of course they didn't believe it. They were not stupid. But they had suffered depression, inflation, and joblessness. They wanted to be well-to-do again, and the fastest way to accomplish that was to steal. Cultivating a belief in the greed of the Jews gave them an excuse to steal everything the Jews possessed.

We sat in our flats, paralyzed with fear, waiting for the madness to end. Rational, charming, witty, dancing, generous Vienna must surely rebel against such insanity We waited and we waited and it didn't end and it didn't end and still we waited and we waited.

The restrictions against Jews spread into every corner of our lives. We couldn't go to movies or concerts. We couldn't walk on certain streets. The Nazis put up signs on Jewish shop windows warning the population not to buy there. Mimi was fired from her job at the dry cleaners because it had become illegal for Christians to employ Jews. Hansi was no longer allowed to go to school.

SS men supervise the confiscation of goods belonging to Jews deported from Vienna --
www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

Uncle Richard went to the cafe where he had been going for twenty years. It now had a Jewish side and an Aryan side, and he sat on the Jewish side. Because he had fair hair and didn't look Jewish, a waiter, who did not know him, said he had to move to the Aryan side. But on the Aryan side, a waiter who did know him said that he had to go back to the Jewish side. He finally gave up and went home.

Baron Louis de Rothschild, one of the wealthiest Jewish men in Vienna, tried to leave the city. The Nazis stopped him at the airport and put him in prison, and whatever they did to him there convinced him that he ought to sign over everything to the Nazi regime. Then they let him leave. The SS took over the Rothschild Palace on Prinz Eugenstrasse and renamed it the Center for Jewish Emigration.

Right after Grandmother died, the world held a conference at Evian-les-Bains, a luxurious spa in the French Alps near Lake Geneva, at which the fate of the Austrian Jews was up for discussion. Eichmann sent representatives of our community to plead with other countries to pay the Nazi ransom and take us in. "Don't you want to save the urbane, well-educated, fun-loving, cultured Jews of Austria?" they asked. "How about paying $400 a head to the Nazi regime? Too much? How about $200?"

They couldn't get a cent.

No country wanted to pay for our rescue, including the United States. The dictator of the Dominican Republic, Trujillo, took a few Jews, thinking they might help bring some prosperity to the tiny, impoverished country. I have heard that they did.

Transport list of Viennese Jews -- www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

From the NAZI Officer's WIFE -- Edith Hahn Beer, c.1999