ADOLF HITLER’S BIRTH HOUSE

As with many famous people from antiquity, history buffs often like to visit where it all began. Adolf Hitler has become one of the most despised yet intriguing, and one of the most studied people from modern times and his birth home is a place that many chose to visit for a variety of reasons. Before we begin, a quick disclaimer: This is a recounting of history. We are not here to glorify Adolf Hitler or the Nazi regime, but to understand a place tied to their story. In about thirty seconds I’ll take you to Hitler’s birth home and tell you it’s story.

Hey everybody this is Colonel Carson with Family Tree Nuts, and I’m a professional genealogist and a historian. We recently visited this location, and I want to share its story and show its sights with all of you. At Family Tree Nuts, we build family trees for clients that either don’t know how, don’t have the time, or don’t want to pay those expensive membership fees. We’d love to honor your ancestors for you. We also make history videos all over the United States, and a few countries. If you like videos like these, be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel. This video is one of many that we have from Germany and about Hitler and the Nazi’s. Now back to the story.

Adolf Hitler’s birth house stands in Braunau am Inn, a small Austrian town in Upper Austria, about 100 kilometers east of Munich. The town, with a population of around 17,000 today, lies on the north bank of the Inn River, which forms a natural border separating Austria from Germany to the south. The river, a tributary of the Danube, has historically shaped Braunau as a trading hub. The house itself, at Salzburger Vorstadt 15, is a three-story structure with a yellow facade, dating back to the 1600s. It began as a brewery and tavern before becoming a residential building by the late 1800s. On April 20, 1889, Adolf Hitler was born in a rented apartment on its top floor.

Hitler’s stay in the house was short-lived. His father, worked as a customs official in Braunau am Inn, a posting that brought the family to the border town. Adolf, the third of six children born to Alois and Klara Hitler, spent only a few weeks in the apartment after his birth. By mid-1889, the family moved to another address in Braunau, and in 1892, when Adolf was three, they left for Passau, Germany, following Alois’s reassignment. Hitler had no further personal ties to the house or town in his childhood. He returned only once as an adult, on March 12, 1938, during World War II, briefly stopping in Braunau after the Anschluss, the Nazi annexation of Austria, while in route to Linz.

The house is modest and blends into Braunau’s historic district along the Inn River. It occupies roughly 800 square meters, or 8,600 square feet, with a corner design that includes a main building and rear garages. From the street, it overlooks a quiet, cobblestone area typical of the town’s old quarter. In 1989, a memorial stone was placed on the sidewalk in front of it, sourced from granite at the Mauthausen concentration camp. The inscription reads: “For peace, freedom and democracy. Never again fascism. Millions of dead remind us.”

The building’s purpose shifted over time. After the 1938 annexation, the Nazi Party bought it and made it a cultural center with an art gallery and library, celebrating Hitler’s birthplace. Following Germany’s defeat in 1945, American forces occupied it briefly, preventing its destruction by Nazi loyalists. In 1952, it was returned to the Pommer family, who had owned it since the early 1900s century. The Austrian government leased it, thereafter, using it as a library, a bank, a technical school, and, from the 1970s to 2011, a day-care center for people with disabilities. In 2011, the Pommers halted renovations, leaving it empty. After years of debate about its fate, Austria expropriated the property in 2016 for 810,000 euros to prevent it from becoming a neo-Nazi pilgrimage site.

The house is now a police station. This repurposing reflects Austria’s aim to address its Nazi legacy while ensuring the site serves a practical, non-ideological function.

So now we know the story and have seen the amazing sights of Hitler’s birth house. What do you think? Have you ever been here before is it one you bucket list? What do you think of the history of the place? Do you think it should be bulldozed, or should the history be remembered? We’d love to hear what you have to say in the comments below. We are proud to share this information with all of you, and be sure to see our video from here at the link below. And remember, Family Tree Nuts, let out nuts find the nuts in your family tree.

-Colonel Russ Carson, Jr., Founder, Family Tree Nuts