Braunau am Inn (Austria) (AFP) – Austria will formally open a new police station on Wednesday in Adolf Hitler’s former house, in the hope of deterring today’s ascendant far-right extremists from making the pilgrimage to the Nazi dictator’s birthplace.

The authorities hope that its transformation will bring to an end a long and delicate debate over what to do with the site, in a country often criticised for not taking full responsibility for its role in the Holocaust.

After a 20-million-euro ($23-million) refurbishment finished three years behind schedule, the unassuming building where one of history’s most notorious figures was born in the centre of the town of Braunau-am-Inn is all but unrecognisable.

The roughcast yellow walls of the 17th-century home near the German border, where the future Fuehrer was born on April 20, 1889, have been whitewashed over by the Austrian architecture firm Marte.

A police sign hangs above the entrance, while the pavement still bears a memorial stone with the inscription: “For Peace, Freedom and Democracy. Never Again Fascism. Millions of Dead Warn.”

After Hitler’s Germany annexed its Alpine neighbour in 1938, 65,000 Austrian Jews were killed and another 130,000 forced into exile.

But the country’s most popular political party is now the far-right FPOe, which was founded by former Nazis. Around 37 percent of Austrians back the party, according to polling aggregator Europe Elects.

The house, which had been in the hands of the same family from 1912, was from 1972 leased to the Austrian state and used as a centre for disabled people, who were also among the Third Reich’s victims.

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