New Delhi, July 23 -- The house where Adolf Hitler was born officially began a new chapter on Wednesday as it reopened as a police station in Braunau am Inn, near Austria's border with Germany.

The large terraced building had long been the subject of public debate. Previously privately owned, it had also housed a charity for people with disabilities. Austria compulsorily purchased the property in 2017 and announced two years later that it would be remodelled into a police station.

Even before the conversion, the building carried little visible reference to its historical significance. A memorial stone on the pavement, brought from the Mauthausen concentration camp, bears the inscription, "Never again fascism," without mentioning Hitler ...