Canterbury’s Mt Hutt Ski Field has quietly removed the name of a Former Volunteer in the Nazi Waffen SS from its Slopes, after outrage over its decision to name a Ski Run and Restaurant after him
Willi Huber was an Austrian-born SS combatant who emigrated to New Zealand, referred to as a “founding father” of the Mt Hutt ski resort, the Algemeiner Journal reports.
A hut with a plaque of Huber stands on the mountain, and after Huber died on 9 August 2020 at the age of 97, the resort announced plans to name a ski run and a restaurant after him.
However, after enormous backlash from the public, Jewish human rights groups and the LGBTQI+ community, NZSki—the company operating Mt Hutt—revealed it had removed the ski run reference to Huber and that it would not name a restaurant after the Nazi volunteer.
A petition calling for the move to be scrapped has attracted at least 6,800 signatures. While backlash over the move to honour the Nazi escalated after a now infamous interview with New Zealand’s Sunday, in which Huber described Adolf Hitler as “very clever”.
It comes after Newsroom discovered that Huber’s Run had been removed from the ski field’s trail map and the restaurant had been renamed Ōpuke Kai.
NZSki chief executive Paul Anderson confirmed the changes to the Kiwi outlet and said the decision was made early this year, with the changes implemented in February.
“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,” he told Newsroom. “We’ve just come to our decision that it’s time to move forward.”
According to Newsroom, the genesis of Mt Hutt can be traced to 1972.
“Huber spent the winter by himself in a hut at 2,000 metres above sea level, monitoring weather and plotting ski trails,” the outlet reports.
“When the ski field opened the following year, he was the first manager.”
The plaque that marks the site of Huber’s hut won’t be removed.
Read the article in Travel Weekly.