Braunau draws the end: streets to Nazi operators are renamed!

Braunau draws the end: streets to Nazi operators are renamed!

On July 3, 2025, the Braunau municipal council decided with 28 against 9 votes to rename Josef-Reiter-Straße and Franz-Resl-Straße. This is done in the context of many years of demands to distance the National Socialist heritage in Adolf Hitler's birthplace. Willi Mernyi, chairman of the Mauthausen Committee Austria, described the decision as "beautiful, hard -won success" and thanked the supporters of this measure.

The renaming is not only a symbolic step, but also follows a legal report by the constitutional expert Markus Vašek from the Johannes Kepler University Linz. This report states that the road racing that the National Socialists honor, violate the Austrian state contract and are therefore unconstitutional. Article 9 of the State Treaty obliges Austria to remove “all traces of Nazism” from public life and to test the biographies of the namesake should be suspected of Nazi burden.

new name suggestions

For Josef-Reiter-Straße, Dr. Lea Olczak, a Braunau anti -fascist, proposed as a new namesake. Franz-Resl-Straße is to be replaced by the name Maria Stromberger, a Catholic resistance fighter. These suggestions make the endeavor to correct historical injustices and to give the victims of National Socialism more recognition.

The FPÖ spoke out against the renaming, while the other factions, including ÖVP, SPÖ and the Greens, supported this step. Historian Florian Schwanninger has documented the Nazi-contaminated backgrounds of the road racing. Josef Reiter and Franz Resl were both in close contact with Nazi leaders and were largely integrated into the National Socialist regime. In the past, Linz has already removed street names of contaminated names.

Further steps for denazification

In September, the local council is planning a further renaming of the Dr.-Kriechbaum staircase, whereby Charlotte Taitl, a Holocaust victim, is proposed as a namesake. Eduard Kriechbaum, after which the street was named, had played an important role during the Nazi era and was already revoked honorary citizenship.

Robert Eiter, spokesman for the Upper Austrian network against racism and right -wing extremism, emphasizes the far -reaching consequences of the expert opinion for all of Austria. Other cities have also started to check their road racing and change contaminated names. This is seen as a signal for a broader movement in many communities that want to take a critical look at the Nazi past. The Mauthausen Committee and similar organizations continue to fight for the consistent implementation of the anti -fascist provisions of the state contract.

The decisions of the local council in Braunau show that historical stress can also be tackled in today's world when the will is available for change.

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