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Along with Vilnius in Lithuania, Linz is this year's European Capital of Culture, a role Adolf Hitler also had in mind for the Austrian city of his boyhood. But Linz has so far failed to take its chance to address its Third Reich past and links with the Fuhrer, writes Derek Scally

IN THE GREY morning mist a strangely familiar flag flutters against the facade of the Linz Palace Museum, perched on a hill above the River Danube. The red oblong material has at its centre a white circle with a black shape inside. Isn’t that . . . ? A closer look reveals that it isn’t a swastika flag, just a clever reworking of the banners that once bedecked Linz after the Anschluss in 1938, when Adolf Hitler made a triumphant return to the city he called home.