Austrian house where Hitler was born may soon be for sale

Austrian house where Hit

By REBECCA BASKIN
In the northwestern Austrian town of Braunau am Inn, one three-story structure has connections to a more sinister past - and may soon be for sale. The house in which Adolf Hitler was born, Salzburger Vorstadt 15, will likely soon be on the market with an asking price of some $3.3 million. The leader of the Nazi party was born on April 20, 1889, in a room on the first floor of the house, the ground floor of which was a pub called Gasthof Zum Pommer. The Hitlers lived there until 1894, when they moved to Linz. The Pommer family, after whom the pub took its name, still owns the house, but now Gelinde Pommer wants to sell it. Its current tenants, handicapped people who lived and worked there, are moving to more modern premises, and Pommer has decided that she no longer wants to be responsible for the structure. There is nothing inside the house to indicate its ties to Hitler, but leaders of Braunau am Inn are still worried that neo-Nazis may buy it and make it into a shrine. According to Mayor Gerhard Skiba, the ideal situation would be for the town council to buy the house and thus determine its use - but the council can't afford the steep asking price. According to the Daily Mail, Skiba plans to appeal to the government in Vienna if the house is put up for sale. The Daily Mail also reported that the town is trying to determine if it can prevent the sale of the property to private individuals.