House where Hitler was born 'to be torn down'

Hitler's family lived in the house in Braunau am Inn for three years Credit: PA

The Austrian government appears intent on knocking down the house where Adolf Hitler was born in order to end the site's association with the Nazi leader.

Hitler's family lived in the three-storey house in the northern Austrian city of Braunau am Inn for only three years, but the building has been unable to shake off the historical association and has become an occasional place of neo-Nazi pilgrimage.

The owner of the building has repeatedly refused to sell, thwarting plans to demolish the structure, but the government has now ordered the compulsory purchase of the site.

Interior minister Wolfgang Sobotka said he wanted to ensure that any association with Hitler be eliminated at the site.

The move follows a recommendation by a committee of experts including historians, officials and the head of Austria's main Jewish organisation,

Hitler was born in the house in Braunau in April 1889 Credit: PA

Sobotka said a "thorough architectural remodelling" would be necessary to "permanently prevent the recognition and the symbolism of the building".

Ministry spokesman Karl-Heinz Grundboeck said that effectively means the house will be replaced by a new structure.

Austrian newspaper Die Presse, which first reported the decision, also said the house would be torn down.

"A new building will be erected," Die Presse quoted Sobotka as saying.

"The house will then be used by the community either for charitable or official purposes."

A spokesman for Sobotka said only that demolition was "one possibility".

Hitler was born in the house in Braunau, a town near Salzburg on the German border, in April 1889.