Austria to change two streets named after Nazi supporters

Two streets in Adolf Hitler’s hometown in Austria are to be renamed following longstanding complaints that they commemorate Nazis, officials say.

The council of Braunau am Inn made the decision on Wednesday after a “secret vote”, according to local media. It followed a report, commissioned by the local government, which concluded that keeping the names was unconstitutional.

The streets are named after composer Josef Reiter and entertainer Franz Resl, both of whom were members of the Nazi party.

About 200 households will get a new address after the names are changed.

The Austrian government has long been criticised by historians for the way it has acknowledged its part in World War Two, and in particular for positioning itself as a victim rather than a participant.

The move to rename the streets has been welcomed as a “decision with symbolic significance” by the Mauthausen Committee. At least 90,000 prisoners were killed by the Nazis at Mauthausen concentration camp in northern Austria between 1938–1945.

Committee chairman Willi Mernyi told local media that they had “worked hard for this”, and thanked all who supported them.

Robert Eiter, a committee member, added that they had suggested the names be changed to honour Austrians who actively opposed the Nazis – former deputy mayor Lea Olczak, whose father died in Mauthausen, and Maria Stromberger, who joined the resistance while working as the head nurse at Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland.

Many streets in Austria have already been renamed due to their Nazi associations, including one honouring Ferdinand Porsche, founder of the luxury car company, in the city of Linz – but 80 years on since the end of the war, others still remain.

Around 65,000 Austrian Jews were killed in the Holocaust during World War Two, when the Nazi party, led by Adolf Hitler, worked to eradicate Europe’s Jewish population, as well as the Slavic and Roma population.

During the war, the Nazi regime systematically murdered more than six million Jewish people.