A Kiwi historian and North & South magazine have revealed the previously untold story of a former Nazi soldier who moved to New Zealand and went on to play a pioneering role in Mount Hutt ski field.
Historian Andrew Macdonald and his colleague Naomi Arnold uncovered the history of Willi Huber which has been published in the latest issue of the magazine.
Macdonald told The AM Show on Tuesday they spoke to friends and acquaintances of Huber, who died in 2020, along with pouring through archival documents to reveal his history.
"I only learnt about [Huber] from the media coverage around Huber's death," he said.
"I thought 'there's a bigger story here and it's surely worth investigating'. So as a journalist, as an author and as a military historian I embarked on that journey.
"We put together a story which is quite a remarkable insight - not just into his life but the way he seems to have thought and acted."
Huber arrived in New Zealand in the 1950s after lying to immigration authorities about his involvement with the Waffen-SS (the military branch of the Nazi Party's SS organisation).
"It's not like he's fibbed about some parking ticket or some work placement, he's told a lie about being involved in a criminal organisation that had a hand in genocide. That's a significant dishonesty offence," Macdonald said.
The writers looked into Huber's background during World War II to see what involvement he had, and how much he could have known about the atrocities which occurred.
"Right from the outset I strongly suspected there would be no smoking gun put in his hand and indeed this did turn out to be the case. But Mr Huber did voluntarily join the Waffen-SS he did so during the wartime which means potentially he was a part of a criminal organisation.
"The real acid test is whether he knew of the criminal nature and in my article, I've spent quite a lot of time delving into that, what he might have seen, what he might have done, where he was, the things and the thinking he was exposed to. I think we get a fairly clear picture that he knew exactly what was going on."
Macdonald told The AM Show, when Huber moved to New Zealand and became well known for establishing the Mt Hutt ski field, he didn't let on much about his past in Germany.
"My Huber told a story about his war service which had small correlation to his actual service and that was that he was a volunteer into the Waffen-SS. I'm not trying to take away from the good things that Mr Huber did for the community, and he did - let's be honest about that. But the bigger question is should New Zealand really want people who commit such dishonesty offences in the country, and then maintain that lie partly because they desire to and partly out of necessity, for 65 years and then at the end of that still express adulation for vile characters such as Adolf Hitler."
The Spinoff reported Kiwis have previously lavished praise on Huber as the “pioneer” and “father of the mountain” and some news outlets failed to mention his Nazi past.
The story questioned whether his "legacy" should be honoured, something Macdonald questioned.
He said there should have been "some accountability" for Huber's actions - "simply brushing it under the carpet is not acceptable".
