Hitler's house spared demolition but will be 'disguised'

A three-storey Renaissance building containing the apartment where Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was born has been spared demolition but will emerge "heavily disguised".

The Austrian government secured a compulsory purchase order for the building in Braunau with plans to demolish it to end the town's association with the dictator.

But on Tuesday, Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka said instead the building would re-emerge heavily disguised but will not be knocked down.

Hitler's family only lived in the apartment for three years but the building has occasionally been the site of neo-Nazi pilgrimage.

An inscription on a stone outside the building reads: "For peace, freedom and democracy, never again fascism, millions of dead are a warning."

Sobotka said he wanted to ensure that any association with Hitler is eliminated at the site.

But he said that the term "torn down" is debatable but the building will be so thoroughly redesigned that it "will not be recognisable".

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

Several members of a government-appointed commission on the future of the house said destroying it to end its attraction for admirers of the Nazi dictator would give an impression of trying to erase part of Austria's history.