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Guenter Grass faces flak over his World War role

Samuel Loewenberg

Storm grows over belated SS confessions by the German Nobel Prize winner

Guenter Grass — Photo: AP

Berlin: The head of Germany's main Jewish organisation on Tuesday joined the chorus of criticism whipped up by the belated admission of the Nobel Prize-winning novelist Guenter Grass that he had served in the Waffen SS during the Second World War.

Charlotte Knobloch, president of the Central Council of Jews, said Grass' admission negated the novelist's long-time criticism of Germany's inability to come to terms with its Nazi past. "His long years of silence over his own SS past reduce his earlier statements to absurdities," Ms. Knobloch said.

The 78-year-old author, who has long been seen as the moral conscience of Germany, revealed his SS service in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper published on August 12, in advance of the release next month of his autobiography, Peeling the Onion.

"My silence through all these years is one of the reasons why I wrote this book," Grass announced. "It had to come out finally."

How he joined

Grass said he volunteered at age 15 for the submarine service and was refused, only to be called up for military service two years later. When he reported for duty in Dresden, he found it was with the 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg. He said that under the sway of Nazi indoctrination he did not view the Waffen SS as something repulsive but as an elite force.

Earlier claim

Previously Grass had claimed he was a flakhelfer, a youth conscript forced to work on anti-aircraft batteries in 1944. The word gave rise to a generation who claimed they were the unwilling participants in the Nazi War effort.

The weekend revelations have left many questioning his motives. "It is a disappointment, in a way he has betrayed the whole generation," said his biographer, Michael Jurgs, who said Grass had never spoken of it during their many conversations. "We adored him not only as a moral icon, but as a figure who was telling the truth even when the truth hurts."

Despite its grim connotations, nobody is suggesting that Grass's service in the Waffen SS means he was involved in Nazi war crimes. Although the SS was in charge of administering the Holocaust, the Waffen SS was a military arm.

Criticism

Some see Grass' revelations as blatantly self-serving. Hellmuth Karasek, the prominent literary critic and author, speculated that if Grass had revealed his service in the Waffen SS a decade ago, he would have been denied the Nobel Prize. "It was a kind of cowardice and opportunism of conscious," Karasek said.

Others had a more generous interpretation. "He knew that to have made it public many years ago would have diminished his influence in German public affairs," literary critic Walter Jens said.

Surprise

Grass is said to be surprised at the extent of the reaction to his revelations. The Christian Democratic party, of which Grass was a frequent critic for its association with former Nazis, has called for him to return his Nobel Prize.

Former Polish Solidarity leader and president, Lech Walesa, was quoted as saying Grass should hand back the honorary citizenship he was awarded for the Polish city of Gdansk, where he was born.

According to friends, Grass is disappointed at the reaction, especially from former allies. "He didn't plan for the explosion [of negative publicity] and he is disappointed," said Freimut Duve, a former leading Social Democratic party politician who is one of the author's oldest and closest friends. Mr. Duve said Grass had occasionally spoken to him about his past, especially when the two were on human rights trips to the former Yugoslavia together in the 1990s. "He never used the words SS. He always said he was a young Nazi soldier, and that that was what made such an impact on his life."

But Grass was naive in not foreseeing the reaction, Karasek said. "It is a kind of self-destruction of a holy man, of a saint." —

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

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