Austria to Demolish Hitler's Birth House

BELGRADE - After years of bitter legal wrangling, the Austrian government announced plans Monday to demolish the house where Adolf Hitler was born and replace it with a new building in efforts to erase any link to the Nazi dictator's birthplace.

Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka said in an exclusive interview with Austrian newspaper Die Presse the Hitler house in the western town of Braunau will be torn down. He said the new structure "will be used thereafter by either a charity or the local authorities."

Sobotka said he wants to ensure any association with Hitler be eliminated and to prevent Hitler's birthplace from becoming a kind of "pilgrimage [site] and memorial" for neo-Nazis.

The owner had repeatedly refused to sell the building. It is unclear whether she changed her mind or if the government dispossessed her.

Sobotka said "a thorough architectural...