VIENNA (AP) — Austria's highest court on Friday ruled the government was within its rights to seize the house where Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler was born in 1889 after its owner refused to sell it, saying the move was needed to give the state full control over plans to reduce its attraction for neo-Nazis.

The Constitutional Court ruled that the government had "full authority" to expropriate the house in Braunau am Inn, near the German border. The expropriation, it said, "was in the public interest, proportionate, and not without compensation and is thus not unconstitutional."

The government want...