Former Nazi’s name removed from Mt Hutt ski attractions

New Zealand ski field Mt Hutt has reportedly removed references to a former Nazi military officer from its attractions.

Management at the Canterbury ski field Mt Hutt have removed the name of Willi Huber from a ski run and restaurant following an online protest and complaints from the New Zealand Jewish Council and the Holocaust Centre of New Zealand.

Huber, lauded as the ‘father of the mountain’ in a 2017 TVNZ Sunday programme, died in August last year, aged 98.

A member of Hitler’s Waffen-SS, Huber rose to the rank of Hauptsturmfuhrer (equivalent of a captain) during the Second World War before becoming a prisoner-of-war.

Arriving in New Zealand in 1953, in the early 1970s he spent a winter on Mt Hutt monitoring weather and plotting ski trails.

When the ski field opened in 1973, he was its first manager.

Following Huber’s death last year and news reports on his life and legacy, Rob Berg, President of the Zionist Federation of New Zealand, started an online petition to erase Huber’s name from Mt Hutt.

Subsequently, members of the New Zealand Jewish Council and the Holocaust Centre of New Zealand discussed the issue with Paul Anderson, Chief Executive of NZSki, the company that operates Mt Hutt, and Queenstown fields The Remarkables and Coronet Peak.

After the meeting, it was reported that NZSki would only change the names of the ski run and restaurant if evidence was presented linking Huber to war crimes.

However, as reported by New Zealand website newsroom. recent searches of Mt Hutt’s website show that Huber’s Run has been removed from the ski field’s trail map and the restaurant had been renamed Ōpuke Kai. (Ōpuke is the Māori name for Mt Hutt).

Confirming the changes, Anderson said the decision was made early this year and the changes were implemented in February.

He told newsroom. “we’ve had to take care on the way through to respect the views of a wide range of people and recognise that there were diverse opinions on the issue. We’ve just come to our decision that it’s time to move forward.”

Holocaust Centre Chairwoman, Deborah Hart welcomed the move, commenting “it is important that we don’t forget what happened in World War II - we had a lot of servicemen who gave their lives - and we don’t forget what happened in the Holocaust. The Waffen-SS were critical elements of the Nazi apparatus, and we shouldn’t be doing anything to honour them.”

Nonetheless, a plaque marking the site of a hut where Huber stayed while developing the ski field has and will not be removed, with Anderson saying it represents a “geographical record … that’s actually history”.

Anderson went on to state “there will always be a record of him (Huber) being the founder of Mt Hutt ski area, but given that we’ve learned in more recent times that some people were offended by his name appearing, we’ve just consulted with a bunch of people and decided that on balance it’s time to move forward.”

Images: Mt Hutt (top) and Willi Huber as he appeared in TVNZ's Sunday Programme in 2017 (below, courtesy of TVNZ).