For Caux’s 25th anniversary in 1971, a charter plane brought 124 people from Australasia and the Pacific, including a group of Māori from New Zealand. As it flew up the coast of Italy, their leader, Canon Wi Te Tau Huata, experienced strong emotions.

Wi Te Tau Huata had been chaplain to the 28th Māori Battalion which had suffered heavy casualties in Italy during World War II, especially at Monte Cassino. Huata had conducted the burial service for each Māori who was killed.

When the party arrived at Caux, one of the hosts of the conference, Fulvia Spoerri, gave the new arrivals an introduction to the conference centre. She ended by saying, ‘I am a German; many of my generation call themselves Europeans. We are ashamed of the cost paid by your countries on the other side of the world for our actions in the Second World War. We don’t ask you to forget; we do ask for your forgiveness.’

As soon as the meeting ended, Huata stormed out. ‘That was one of the worst moments I have lived through,’ he told a friend who asked what was wrong. ‘I am reminded of all the friends I buried in Italy and of my prayer during those days: “God, destroy Hitler and wipe the Germans off the face of the earth.”’

‘What do you feel to do about it?’ the friend asked.

‘I need to apologize to the lady,’ Huata replied. ‘I have been a priest all these years and I have carried this hate in my heart.’ Before he left for Caux, his wife had asked him, ‘What are you going to do when you meet the Germans?’ His reply had been that he would wait until it happened.

At that moment Fulvia Spoerri walked by and Huata stopped her and asked for her forgiveness. ‘This produced a stormy conflict inside me and I had a restless night,’ he said later. ‘Next morning my room-mate told me it had been like sharing a room with a whale!’

The next morning, he asked for a chance to speak from the platform, and repeated his apology to all the Germans present. ‘I spoke about reconciliation and felt as if a ton weight had fallen from my back.'

I spoke about reconciliation and felt as if a ton weight had fallen from my back.

Unknown to him, former officers from the German Afrika Corps were present and at the end of the meeting they came to shake his hand. Some of them had come to Caux in a last attempt to heal difficult marriages, or to reach an understanding with their children. They asked Huata to help them.

After Caux, Canon Huata visited Northern Ireland, where he met the outspoken loyalist politician Ian Paisley. He told him of the freedom from bitterness he had found, and of the new friends he had made amongst former enemies.

He also went to see the Abbot of the Cistercian Order in Portglenone. There he spoke of the bitterness he had held towards Catholics. ‘My eldest son married a Catholic and I never forgave him, until at Caux I saw that “love your neighbour” includes those not in the Anglican Church!’ He had written a letter of apology to his son and daughter-in-law and received their loving reply on the day he arrived in Ireland.

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Before leaving Europe the Māori group visited Rome where they attended Pope Paul VI’s service at Castel Gondolfo. They were ushered to the front of the large auditorium with its congregation of 5,000.  

After the service the Pope came down from the dais to where the Māori were standing, wearing their traditional cloaks and headbands. Placing his hands on their shoulders, the Pope said, ‘My blessings and special greetings to the Māori people of New Zealand.’ He presented them each with a medallion. Huata later gave his medallion to his son and daughter-in-law.

The New Zealand Ambassador in Rome had known the Canon in Italy during the war. He provided a car and driver so that they could visit the war cemetery in Monte Cassino, 80 miles away. There, more than 25 years after the battle, the Canon conducted a memorial service for all those who had made the ‘supreme sacrifice’, both friend and enemy.

• Read more about Canon Huata in Matt Manson's article The Warrior Canon.
• Discover more about the Māori people and their history in Joan Holland's article 'Facing up to Waitangi' .

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This story is part of our series 75 Years of Stories about individuals who found new direction and inspiration through Caux, one for each year from 1946 to 2021. If you know a story appropriate for this series, please do pass on your ideas by email to John Bond or Yara Zhgeib. If you would like to know more about the early years of Initiatives of Change and the conference centre in Caux please click here and visit the platform For A New World.

• Photo Monte Cassino: Mark G Rule
• Photos Waipatu Marae conference: Initiatives of Change
• All other photos: Initiatives of Change
• The Warrior Canon, Matt Manson, 1989
• Facing up to Waitangi, Joan Holland, 1990

Part of Caux’s magic is the chance it offers for people from conflict areas around the world to learn from each other. In the summer of 1970, meetings took place between groups from Northern Ireland and South Tyrol, a German-speaking province of Italy where communal tensions had erupted into violence in the 1960s. As their own conflict escalated, the Northern Irish were keen to learn from South Tyrol’s journey towards reconciliation.

The unrest in South Tyrol had begun in 1919, when the region was given to Italy after the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian empire. It intensified under Italian Fascism. Although a UN resolution in 1946 agreed that the province should be given regional autonomy, this had not been implemented.

In 1961 German-speaking secessionists blew up 37 electricity pylons, cutting off power supplies to the province’s industrial area, and by the end of the decade the unrest had cost 21 lives.

During 1968, at the invitation of Heini Karrer, one of the Swiss responsible for the conference centre in Caux, two groups of German- and Italian-speaking politicians visited Caux. There they met people from even more difficult situations than their own. As Karl Mitterdorfer, MP for South Tyrol in the Italian parliament, explained, they realized ‘that in solving our problems effectively, we could become an example for all those in the world who have to come to grips with problems infinitely more complex than ours’.

In solving our problems effectively, we could become an example for all those in the world who have to come to grips with problems infinitely more complex than ours.

During their time in Caux something shifted in the politicians’ relationships, which affected the atmosphere back home. That November Mitterdorfer’s party, which represented the German-speaking community, agreed the Italian government’s proposals for a solution. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wrote, ‘Since the summer no more blood has been shed. It appears as if a turbulent period of 10 years has come to an end.’

The meetings in Caux in the summer of 1970 were the result of a visit to Northern Ireland earlier that year by Mitterdorfer and a colleague from his party, Peter Brugger. They spoke at a public meeting attended by government and opposition politicians, Catholic and Protestant clergy, and people who had been on opposite sides of the barricades.

‘Violence is not a solution,’ Mitterdorfer said. ‘In our case, violence sparked counter-violence and led to a fatal spiral. By themselves, even the best laws cannot resolve the problems. A new spirit is needed.’

Mitterdorfer and Brugger had not seen eye to eye on policy and their bitter clashes had threatened to split the party. Mitterdorfer told his audience how at Caux he had realized that he was jealous of colleagues who he saw as more successful and able than himself.

‘After long consideration and some prevarication, I apologized to Senator Brugger. I would not like to overestimate such personal steps as this one. But I know that it introduced a new dimension into our relationship. It may have contributed to keeping the unity of our party, which is indispensable for our relations with the Italian government.’

It took 32 years of further negotiations and legislation before the agreement was finally implemented in 1992. ‘Thirty-two years of negotiations for a 70-year old conflict!’ commented the Journal de Genève. ‘It is no exaggeration to talk about an “historic agreement”.’

Mitterdorfer, who as young person wanted to become a violinist not a politician, was just one of the many people who wove the tapestry of the agreement. ‘It was not a matter of renouncing our rights,’ he told the audience in Belfast, ‘but rather of growing into a responsibility that goes beyond our own interests.’

By themselves, even the best laws cannot resolve the problems. A new spirit is needed.

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Christine Karrer Cross (Switzerland/USA) writes:

Between 1967 and 1973, my parents and I lived in Vienna, Austria. When we arrived, my father, Heini Karrer, asked the Austrian Chancellor how he and my mother could best help the country. The Chancellor told them that the Austrian government’s biggest concern was the conflict in the South Tyrol. My shy father decided to go there, not knowing anyone. He stayed in a hotel and started meeting the leaders on both sides.

My father made at least 15 visits to South Tyrol, sometimes with my mother. On one of their visits, Karl Mitterdorfer realized that they were staying in a hotel and invited them to stay in his home whenever they came. After my father died, Mitterdorfer wrote to my mother, expressing his deep gratitude for my father’s contribution to bringing peace.

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Watch Karl Mitterdorfer and other Italian political leaders speak about the South Tyrol situation and his meeting in Caux with Northern Irish politician Jerry O'Neil in the film Crossroad of Nations (1971) from our archives (4"00' - 8"15')

Discover this film from our archives on the South Tyrol situation (in German only). All the protagonists visited Caux at some point.

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This story is part of our series 75 Years of Stories about individuals who found new direction and inspiration through Caux, one for each year from 1946 to 2021. If you know a story appropriate for this series, please do pass on your ideas by email to John Bond or Yara Zhgeib. If you would like to know more about the early years of Initiatives of Change and the conference centre in Caux please click here and visit the platform For A New World.

• Photo portrait and last in text: Danielle Maillefer
• All other photos: Initiatives of Change
• Film South Tyrol and Crossroad of Nations (1971): Initiatives of Change