SS Officer hailed as a 'hero' by New Zealand media dies at 97
When quizzed about the concentration camps, he agreed that the SS “were wrong but that is about all," adding, "what could we do?”
By DONNA RACHEL EDMUNDSWaffen SS officers in Denmark, 1944(photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)
A decorated Waffen-SS officer has died, aged 97, in New Zealand. During his lifetime he was a controversial figure having been lauded by local media as a "remarkable survivor" of WWII and a "pioneer" of skiing in his adopted country, to the dismay of many Kiwis.Willi Huber was born in the Austrian Alps in 1923, the son of a farmer. At 17, he volunteered to serve with the Waffen-SS, in which he served as both a machine-gunner and then as a gunner in Panzer tanks, including in the Russian invasion in 1941. During the course of his service he was awarded two Iron Crosses, one first and one second class for his role in the eastern campaigns.Following the war he was interred as a political prisoner in an American POW camp, before moving to New Zealand in the 1950s. There, he married and had four children. He also helped found the Mt. Hutt ski area, spending a winter living alone in a hut he built at 2000 meters while he mapped out ski runs and the route for the access road before installing the infrastructure, online magazine Stuff reported.However, during his lifetime he appeared to show little remorse for his actions under Nazi rule,A 2017 report on a Sunday news program broadcast by TVNZ showed a smiling Huber recalling the time he met Hitler, aged 9, New Zealand-based Israel advocacy website Shalom.Kiwi reported at the time. “Can you imagine?” he mused, chuckling. “I give it to Hitler, he was very clever. He brought Austria out of the dump.” Reflecting on Austria's economic status after the World War I, he added that Hitler had "offered a way out" for the Austrian people.When quizzed by the host of program about the concentration camps, he agreed that the SS “were wrong but that is about all," adding, "what could we do?”He also said that he and his comrades were unaware of the camps, telling the host: "We, as soldiers never, never had the slightest inkling — maybe the high command. It never occurred to us what happened in Germany or Poland."The program caused controversy at the time for its uncritical, almost fawning portrayal of Huber, billing him as a "remarkable survivor:" of the war, and focussing on his contribution to New Zealand's skiing scene. One viewer commented on the program's Facebook page: "Willie Huber once turned to someone I know and said: 'Hitler really wasn’t that bad you know.' This Sunday News program didn’t challenge his claim to ‘know nothing’, it wasn’t investigative and it was damaging. It sickens me. In fact, I actually vomited."The piece wasn't the only uncritical portrait of Huber in New Zealand's media — in 2014 Stuff hailed him as a "heartland hero" for his role in setting up the Mt. Hutt Ski Area.Speaking to the Holocaust and Antisemitism Foundation following Huber's death, renowned Nazi Hunter and Director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center office in Jerusalem, Dr Efraim Zuroff commented:
"As a historian, I can state unequivocally that serving in a Waffen-SS unit on the Eastern Front, there is no way that Mr Huber could possibly not have been aware of the massive atrocities carried out by the SS and the Wehrmacht in the territories of the Soviet Union, where 1,500,000 "enemies of the Reich," primarily Jews, were murdered individually during the years 1941-1943."Huber's statements ring incredibly hollow in the face of the historical record of the Holocaust on the Eastern Front. If we add the fact that he volunteered for the SS, and his comments that Hitler was 'very clever,' and that he 'offered [Austrians] a way out' of the hardships after World War I, it's clear that Mr. Huber was an unrepentant Nazi, who doesn't deserve any sympathy or recognition."
