Hitler's family spent only his first three years of life in the town bordering Germany, yet Austria's government has felt compelled to rent the building for nearly 45 years to ensure that fascists could not transform it into a Nazi shrine. Insiders know that the initials "MB" in the iron grillwork above the imposing wooden entrance stand for Martin Bormann, Hitler's private secretary, who bought the house shortly before World War II with thoughts of turning it into a shrine to the dictator. The government bill unveiled July 12 would empower the state to take ownership of the building from its reclusive owner, Gerlinde Pommer, who since 2011 has been in dispute with her government tenants over how to use the building, previously home to a workshop for the mentally ill. Putting a wrecking ball to it would leave an ugly gap in the rows of flanking Renaissance-era buildings lining cobblestoned streets. [...] the tombstone marking the grave of Hitler's parents, a place of pilgrimage for neo-Nazis, was removed last year at the request of a descendant. A school that Hitler attended in Fischlham, also near Braunau, displays a plaque condemning his crimes against humanity.