Hitler House Not Being Torn Down After All

Austrian government officials have decided to transform the home where Adolf Hitler was born into a base for a charity, not tear down the property as some had demanded. Thursday's decision comes a day after lawmakers overwhelmingly approved an Interior Ministry bill to dispossess the owner, who had refused to sell the empty building in Braunau am Inn, a town on Austria's border with Germany. Provincial Gov. Josef Puehringer says destroying the structure would have fueled accusations of "tearing down a piece of burdensome history," the AP reports. Instead, officials want to remodel the property's facade to eliminate its draw as a shrine for admirers of the Nazi dictator, who was born in the house in 1889. Puehringer says the house will be offered to an agency running a workshop for disabled people. (More Hitler stories.)