Officials mull Hitler buildings

Buildings associated with Adolf Hitler used to be ignored, but now Austrian officials are attempting to preserve them as warnings to future generations.

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"What is important is the role these buildings played in our history, not what ideologies they stood for at the time," said Eva-Maria Hohle, of the Austrian Federal Office for the Care of Monuments.

The Vienna Volkstheater -- which destroyed its "Fuhrer's Room," built for Hitler who used it to entertain loyal Nazis -- has been ordered to rebuild the room, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

Other sites under consideration for preservation are: Vienna's anti-aircraft towers, the "Hermann Goring (steel) Plant" in Linz; and the Meldemann Strasse hostel where Hitler lived from 1910 to 1913 after he was rejected by the Viennese Academy of Fine Arts.

Some opponents of the policy say they are against "commercialization" of Nazi buildings, and that it might encourage "Hitler tourism."