In his eyes, this obsession is linked to what philosopher Hannah Arendt famously called the "banality of evil" -- the idea that Hitler was born behind such ordinary walls into an ordinary, middle-class family.
"People want to see the birthplace of someone who was capable of exterminating large parts of the population in Germany, Austria and beyond," he said.
Locals, meanwhile, resent the attention, deploring that their pastel-coloured town is known for being the cradle of one of the world's most reviled political figures, rather than for its Gothic architecture or pretty river.
"The people here don't deserve this stigma," says district commissioner Georg Wojak. "Braunau's only crime was that Hitler was born here."
Try as it might, the town is unlikely to break the chains that tie it to Adolf Hitler.
He immortalised Braunau in the opening lines of "Mein Kampf", describing as "providential" the fact that he was born in "this little town on the boundary between two German states".
And residents are learning to confront the past more openly.
The days where they would point tourists looking for the building in the wrong direction are over, insists Raschhofer: "When I have guests, I always show them the Hitler house and the memorial stone. It's part of Braunau."
Story First Published: April 29, 2015 11:59 IST
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