 Austrian Government Will Try To Seize The House Where Hitler Was Born 
 
 Enlarge this image toggle caption Kerstin Joensson/AP Kerstin Joensson/AP 
 
 Austrian officials say the government will attempt to seize the house where Adolf Hitler was born. The Austrian interior ministry was so concerned about the possibility of neo-Nazis using the building as a site of pilgrimage that, since 1972, it has rented it from the owner, Gerlinde Pommer, to prevent any misuse. But the last occupants, an organisation for disabled people, moved out in 2011 and since then the building has been empty. Now the government desperately wants to attract new tenants to the notorious site, but the owner’s reluctance to make crucial renovations to the old building is making a difficult sell an almost impossible one. The owner is Gerlinde Pommer, a woman thought to be in her mid-60s who reportedly receives almost €5,000 (£3,925) a month in rent from the government. Image copyright Braunau History Image caption A cutting from a local newspaper in April 1889 records the birth of 'Adolf Hittler' 
 
 Florian Kotanko, a local historian, says Mrs Pommer will not agree to renovations. Every year on Hitler's birthday, anti-fascist protesters organise a rally outside the building at number 15 Salzburger Vorstadt Street, next to a memorial stone reading: "For Peace, Freedom and Democracy. Image copyright BBC / Bethany Bell Image caption A stone plaque outside Hitler's birthplace honours the victims of fascism 
 
 But others, including Florian Kotanko, say ignoring history makes things worse.
– In an effort to prevent the "increasingly decrepit" building from falling into further disrepair, Austrian officials say they plan to draft a law that would allow them to seize Adolf Hitler's birth home in Braunau, a quaint town of 17,000 on the German border, reports the New York Times. "The aim is to prevent the property from falling into the hands of neo-Nazis" who sometimes make pilgrimages to it, a journalist in Vienna tells NPR. "We have come to the conclusion over the past few years that expropriation is the only way to avoid the building being used for the purposes of Nazi [sympathizers]," interior ministry spokesman Karl-Heinz Grundboeck tells AFP. The building is owned by an aging and "reclusive" Gerlinde Pommer, reports Newsweek, who is a descendant of the family that has owned it for more than a century. (Hitler was born in the house on April 20, 1889.) But as a local historian told the BBC in 2014, Pommer "does not allow any changing of the house, so you can't rebuild any rooms, you can't build modern bathrooms or put in a lift." Though it has been empty since the last tenant moved out in 2011, the Austrian government still pays nearly $6,000 a month in rent. The building has recently been proposed as the site for a center for adult education, a museum, or even flats, reports the BBC, which notes that one Russian MP has offered to buy the house and blow it up. (Hitler largely ignored his birth home, visiting it just once during his reign.)