Bookplanet: Gunter Grass says he was in the SS, and Germans projectile vom in their breakfasts

Günter Grass was in the Waffen SS
After Günter Grass confessed that he was a member of Waffen SS at 17, Germany erupted (from signandsight.com)

The admission of German Nobel Prize-winning author Günter Grass that he was a member of the Waffen-SS during World War II has provoked everything from rage to empathy in the German press.

Until now, biographies of the writer, who was born in 1927, have asserted that Grass was conscripted as anti-aircraft personnel in 1944 and then served as a soldier. After being injured on April 20, 1945, he was taken into war captivity by the Americans.

On Saturday, Grass explained in an interview with the FAZ (excerpt in German) that he was not in the armed forces but in fact in the Waffen SS , in the 10th SS tank division "Frundsberg" . The Waffen SS , which came into existence in 1933, was not originally part of the armed forces, but rather a unit of the Nazi party, distinguished by its extreme brutality and ruthlessness. The list of crimes, especially the those in the concentration and extermination camps and the war crimes in the so-called "combat of the partisans" is long and horrible. The massacre of Oradour sur Glane or Sant'Anna di Stazzema , in which entire communities including old people and babies were slaughtered, were the doing of the Waffen SS as was the retaliatory massacre of Czechs after the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in 1942."

Grass said in the interview:

"It had to come out, finally. The thing went as follows: I had volunteered, not for the Waffen-SS but for the submarines, which was just as crazy of me. But they were not taking anyone any more. Whereas the Waffen-SS took whatever they could get in the last months of the war, 1944/45. That went for conscripts but also for older men, who often came from the Air Force - they were called 'Hermann Göring donations.' The fewer intact airfields there were, the more ground personnel were stuck in army units or in units of the Waffen-SS. It was the same with the navy. And for me, I am sure I am remembering correctly, the Waffen-SS was at first not something scary , but rather an elite unit that was always sent to trouble spots, and which, according to rumour, had the most casualties."

He said he volunteered mainly to " get away . From constrictions, from the family. I wanted to put an end to all that, and so I volunteered. And that's also something odd: I enlisted at the age of 15, and promptly forgot the details of the process. And it was the same for many of my birth year: We were in the work service and suddenly, a year later, the conscription order lay on the table. And that must be when I first realized: it is the Waffen-SS." Asked whether he had feelings of guilt, Grass answered: "At the time? No. Later on, this guilt feeling burdened me as a disgrace ." It wasn't until he heard the testimony of Hitler Youth leader Baldur von Schirach in the Nuremberg trials that he "believed that the crimes had actually taken place."

Later, he thought that "what I did in my writing was enough." The 1950s did not seem to be the right time to confess. "We were under Adenauer, ghastly, with all those lies, with all that Catholic fug. The society of that day was fed by a kind of stuffiness that never existed under the Nazis."
(What he is referring to is also the subject of Götz Aly's essay "I am the people" about the revolutionary "now or never" attitude of the Nazis.)

In September, his auto-biography "Peeling Onions" will appear, in which he addresses this chapter of his life, among others.

Public statements (from dpa, netzeitung, SZ, Welt etc.)

Joachim C. Fest (79), Historian: "I wouldn't buy a used car from this man. I don't understand how someone can present himself as the nation's guilty conscience for 60 years and then admit to himself having been deeply involved."

Martin Walser (78), writer: "The most responsible of all contemporaries can not disclose after 60 years that he landed in the Waffen SS through no fault of his own. That casts a devastating light on our climate of coping with its normalised modes of thinking and talking. Grass' independent statement should act as a lesson to this adaptable moral climate."

Ralph Giordano (83), Author: "Worse than making a political error is refusing to deal with it. Grass has been doing this internally for a long time, and now he's turned to the public. For me, he doesn't lose moral credibility – not at all."

Walter Jens (83), philologist: "Grass' admission is balanced, precise and reasonable. A master of penmanship reflects and considers: what have you forgotten to report in your long life? He's done that and gained my respect in the process."

Erich Loest (80), Author: "Grass does not need to be accused for what he has said. He was very young and was without any influence that could have prevented him. I also wanted to register with the Waffen-SS but my school director prevented it. Grass should tell us, why he is only writing about it now."

Klaus Theweleit (64), Essayist and cultural studies scholar: "This is an advertising campaign for a publicity addict who has written a new book. When Grass reads in a survey that not 102 percent of all Germans know who he is, ideas like this occur to him."

Klaus Bölling (77), journalist and government spokesman from 1974-1981: "I don't presume to pass moral judgement. And his disclosure does not belittle his literary work. But as contemporary I have to wonder: Why did such an intelligent man, the Praeceptor Germaniae that he sees himself to be, not mention this long ago?"

Hellmuth Karasek (72), literary critic: "Had he admitted earlier to his membership in the Waffen SS; he might have risked his Nobel Prize. Grass deserved the Nobel Prize more than any other German author. But suddenly, everything appears in a new light."

Dieter Wellershoff (80), writer: Wellershoff, who also fought as a volunteer, but who reported it much earlier, nonetheless defended Grass. Grass' statements, he says, should not be used to morally condemn the writer. "We live in the world in which we were born." Wellershoff didn't want to judge the fact that Grass took so long to break the silence on his own role in National Socialism. Possibly he feared the "rage of the critics."

Michael Wolffsohn (59), historian: "You too, GG... ? You too are going to ooze the truth!" Coming from the generation after Grass, Wolffsohn also knows what would have been a more appropriate moment for the exposure. "In April 1985, he had a golden opportunity. At the time, Germany and the world were heatedly discussing the Bitburg visit of Chancellor Helmut Kohl and American president Ronald Reagan: Should they go together to the cemetery where the soldiers from the Waffen SS lay? They went... Back then, in April 1985, GG should have stood up and explained: I too was involved." But Wolffsohn offers no verdict: "Through his constant silence, it's GG's moralising and not his fictionalising work that is being devalued."

Other voices:

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 12.08.2006

In an editorial, Frank Schirrmacher comments: "To be perfectly clear, it is not a question of guilt and crime. Grass was practically still a boy. And even later, he never portrayed himself as a resistance fighter." And yet: "Anyone familiar with the rhetoric of post war excuses and finger-pointing might think they are not hearing right. The author who wanted to loosen all tongues, who took as his life's theme the secretiveness and suppression of the old Federal Republic of Germany, admits his own silence which, according to his own words, must have been absolute. ... How would it have been if Franz Schönhuber's [former head of the extreme right-wing Republikaner party] Waffen-SS tract, 'I was there,' had been confronted with its counterpart, under the headline, 'Me ,too '?"

Der Tagesspiegel, 12.08.2006

Gregor Dotzauer expressed shock: "Whoever hears this, whether disbelieving or stunned, may think it is a bad joke even after seeing it in convincing black and white, both in the literary recollection and in the interview. Günter Grass, Germany's most celebrated living writer, the Nobel Prize winner, the conscience of the nation, the writer of legends, was a member of the Waffen-SS... A cheap joke of history? Or a truth whose bitterness cannot yet be fully measured? The categories flounder, because it gives rise to so many tones of meaning: for the work of Günter Grass, for his role as bearer of left-wing precepts, for the entire intellectual balance of the country, which his inner struggle and questions on foreign policy still fought out, against the backdrop of 12 long years under Hitler."

Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 14.08.2006

"Posing as a self-assured moralist, and not without vanity, Günter Grass is trying to convert his admission of guilt into aesthetic-ethic capital." Roman Bucheli is not impressed by Grass' late admission to having been a member of the Waffen SS. He's particularly appalled by his uninterrupted dogmatism. "More anger is on its way. The FAZ – which doesn't exactly distinguish itself with tough questions – mentions the name Celan towards the end of the interview. At the end of the 1950s, Grass lived in Paris for four years and was friends with Paul Celan. Of him we learn: 'He spent most of his time buried in his work and at the same time trapped in his real as well as excessive fears.' Grass doesn't waste any time considering the possibility that Celan's 'excessive fears' might be founded in such haunting voids of silence to which he is only now conceding. Impossible to imagine what would have happened, had Celan known that his friend had been a member of the Waffen SS. Smugly, Grass adds to his memories of Celan: 'When he read his poems aloud, you wanted to light candles.'"

Frankfurter Rundschau, 14.08.2006

The author Wilhelm von Sternburg considers Grass' admission, more than sixty years later, to be worthy of recognition. "But it's sad that Günter Grass did it in such a loud way and that he chose such an unworthy moment. The suspicion that someone is trying to promote his book is fatal, given the historical circumstances. This really must not be misused to create a new best-seller. That robs the confessor of too much credibility. Grass had better opportunities to give his confession. Now he's made a deal with a newspaper and both will profit from it."

Süddeutsche Zeitung, 14.08.2006

Gustav Seibt is less shocked by the fact itself than by the lateness of the admission. "Grass' tendency to pass sharp moral judgements often seemed a bit ill-considered. Even now with his 'admission', he presents himself as deeply nauseated by the fug of the Adenauer era – and shows at the same time that he contributed to precisely this fug with his silence. And is the enormous dramatic effort with which Grass is now presenting himself to the public, not a last attempt to morally trap the error and to preserve a lack of ambiguity? Given the circumstances, it seems that what is being exposed is more foolery than guilt and it leaves an after-taste of vanity."

Die Welt, 14.08.2006

Burkhard Spinnen calls for "caution," noting that Günter Grass has learned from his mistakes as few others have. "For many years, my father still received invitations from some military veterans' club. My mother remembers his comment about it: 'You can just toss it out!' Günter Grass has gone way beyond such views and statements. He belongs to a minority of his generation that has demonstrated what can be considered and demanded beyond a mere taboo of mass insanity and criminal ideology. The 'blemish' in one's own biography can lead to pain and self-criticism, but also to a lifelong attempt to better the situation. And so we must show as much caution as we sons and daughters of such fathers can muster." Eckhard Fuhr puts it concisely in his commentary on the opinion pages: "He is simply our national poet."

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 14.08.2006

The storm of comments quickly gathered. Historian Hans-Ulrich Wehler asks : "Why does that all have to come out now, and in such a tortured way? He should have said it before. I can't imagine that anyone would have turned it against him back then, at the end of the 1950s, early 1960s."

Michael Jeismann looks into the history of the "Frundsberg "tank division, whose last - unfulfilled - mission was to get Hitler out of Berlin. "In other words: Grass could have freed Hitler. But they stayed in Spremberg, and Grass did not free Hitler ."


Has Günter Grass Lost his Moral Authority?
Last week, German Nobel laureate Günter Grass revealed that he had been called into a Waffen SS unit towards the end of World War II. The revelation itself has pundits in Germany less concerned than the author's decision to keep it hidden for so long.
By Marc Young (from Der Spiegel)

For decades, Günter Grass has been considered Germany's conscience when it came to the country's Nazi past. The author's entire career has dealt with how Germans face up to and come to terms with the darkest chapters of their history. His "Danzig Trilogy" including "The Tin Drum" became the literary mirror of a conflicted post-war generation. But despite his years of moralizing and reflection, Grass apparently couldn't get a hold of his own role during World War II until very recently.

For more than 60 years, Grass has kept secret that he was conscripted into a unit of the infamous Waffen SS at the tender age of 17. From the middle of 1944 until the end of the war in the spring of 1945, Grass served in the Frundsberg tank division of the elite military outfit. Previously, he had contended that he was teenage helper of an anti-aircraft unit.

Although he did not volunteer for the Waffen SS, Grass' reluctance to admit his ties to the group is understandable. Although many units served as normal -- if fanatical -- soldiers, the Waffen SS was also responsible for guarding concentration camps and was involved in countless war crimes across Europe.

That the revelations come on the eve of the publication of the author's new autobiography has only added oil to the flames of the debate that has consumed Germany over the past few days. Is Grass just cynically fishing for headlines to help sell his book? Many German pundits are incensed about what they see as Grass' bottomless hypocrisy. Some have even called for him to be stripped of his Nobel Prize. But others have defended the author, calling the timing a highly person matter.

All of Germany's major daily newspapers devoted considerable coverage to the topic on Monday. The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung dissects Grass' late confession in no less than three articles including an editorial asking: "Why Was the Talker Silent?" Delving into Grass' long role as one of Germany's leading post-war moral authorities, the paper believes the author has undermined his own credibility as someone who always demanded clarity when dealing with Germany's Nazi legacy. "He shouldn't have remained silent about this part of his biography," the paper writes. "Coming to grips with it earlier wouldn't have made him less credible, rather the opposite. His moral authority would have perhaps even been stronger."

Cologne's main paper, the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger , is even harsher in its verdict. "The moral preacher has fallen from his perch -- if he had decided to take this step earlier and from the start made no secret of this role under National Socialism he probably would have rightly found understanding," opines the paper. "But now his droning silence sounds a bit pathological and a little bit cowardly." The paper is particularly irked by how it seems Grass is once again telling the world how so many people were enthusiastic supporters of the Nazi regime during the war. "However, this time he can't deflect with any moral furor. It's not about the many, this time it's about him."

The right-wing daily Die Welt -- not necessarily always a friend of Grass' left-wing politics over the years -- titles its main page-three article on the subject: "End of a Tenure," referring to his "job" over the years judging others. "It's not serving in the Waffen SS, nor his 60-year silence about this fact that make him attackable," writes Die Welt, claiming that it's instead Grass' inability to accept that others might have different views other than his own. The conservative paper connects his fervor during the Third Reich as a teenager with his disdain for Germany's bourgeoisie ever since. "It all has the marks of a mentality formed under National Socialism. The end of his tenure as a moral authority is now here."

The leftist daily Die Tageszeitung addresses the controversy with two articles. The first looks at the latest revelations in the context of his coming autobiography "While Peeling the Onion." The paper says the problem is less that Grass was conscripted into the Waffen SS at all and more the timing of his confession and that it took him so long to come clean. The author will now have to live with the fact everyone can criticize him for his "denial mechanisms," "calculating" nature and the fact that he apparently didn't wish to risk not winning the Nobel Prize for literature. "Grass' works and influence will certainly have to be seen in a different light against the background of his confession," the paper writes.

In a separate editorial Die Tageszeitung is less judgemental, saying Grass deserves "pity rather than the moral guillotine." Although the author is being criticized from countless corners at the moment, the scandal isn't nearly as big as it seems, according to the editorial. "Grass was 16 years old. He didn't fire a shot and tried to get out of training by giving himself jaundice." Still, he isn't totally let off the hook: "Why did Grass fake his biography? Nobody, not even Grass himself can answer this plausibly."

The business daily Financial Times Deutschland doesn't mince words in its assessment of the affair: "Nobody today will accuse Grass of once having been a blinded and misused 17-year-old youthful Nazi. Nobody will question his literary qualities. But the political-moral authority that the author always demanded for himself is ruined by his rather late memory." Like other papers, the FTD points out that Grass made a point of criticizing conservative leaders Helmut Kohl and Ronald Reagan for visiting a cemetery in 1985 that contained the remains of Waffen SS as well as other war dead. "He chose not to use the grand chance to come clean about his own history and gain credibility."


3. Gunter Grass's Silence
The Nobel laureate draws fire for his secret Nazi past. But his lies may have helped postwar Germany face some bitter truths
By NATHAN THORNBURGH

It would be a tough day for anyone, the day you admit you were a member of the Nazi Waffen-SS. Sixty years after war's end, there continues to be, to put it mildly, a p.r. problem for Germans who belonged to Heinrich Himmler's personal army, the largely volunteer force that staffed the concentration camps and crushed the Warsaw Uprising.

Now imagine making that confession after a lifetime of establishing yourself as Germany's most ardent advocate of full disclosure and penance. There you are, having been jabbing a finger in the German body politic's chest for 60 years, accusing them of failing to own up to their collective responsibility for the war. And it turns out you've had a dirty little secret of your own all along. This is exactly what happened on last week to Gnther Grass, the novelist and Nobel literature laureate who was the voice of Germany's war generation. The admission came in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper, in advance of the release next month in Germany of Grass's new autobiography, Peeling the Onion.

"It was a weight on me," Grass, 78, told the paper. "My silence over all these years is one of the reasons I wrote book. It had to come out finally." Grass says he originally signed up for submarine duty at 15, but was turned down, and two years later, in 1944, was directed instead to the SS, though he says he didn't realize he was being shipped there until he showed up for basic training. Why volunteer in the first place? "Above all, I wanted to get away from home," he told the paper. "Away from the close quarters, away from the family. I wanted to end all that, and that's why I volunteered."

Grass had always maintained he was a flakhelfer, a youth conscript forced to work anti-aircraft batteries. The alibi placed him right in the mainstream of his peers, who came to be called the flakhelfer generation — those who claimed they were unwilling participants in the war effort and especially its atrocities.

Newspapers across Germany were predictably atremble over Grass's revelation. The Welt am Sonntag called Grass' admission "moral suicide," and compared his insistence that he never fired a shot while in the SS to Bill Clinton's saying he smoked weed but didn't inhale. Other papers cried "too late" and wrote at length about the glass house Grass had been living in. Over in Poland, Lech Walesa said Grass should give back his honorary Polish citizenship. At least one conservative politician in Germany, perhaps looking for payback after decades of being nettled by Grass, has called for his Nobel Prize to be rescinded.

What's being lost in all the giddy gotcha is an acknowledgement of the continued importance of Grass' message of reckoning with the past. Young Germans don't want to talk about the past. At the World Cup, they were delighted to be able wave their flags like Americans at a Fourth of July demolition derby. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has remained silent on a controversial proposal to build a Berlin memorial to the German families who were refugees from occupied territories after the war. Even Germany's most famously repentant flakhelfer, Pope Benedict XVI, ne Joseph Ratzinger (who was assigned to a missile battery protecting a BMW factory near his hometown during the war), has strayed from the cautious path of reckoning and reconciliation. His recent speech at Auschwitz, which seemed in part to recast the Holocaust as a cleverly disguised attempt on the life of the Christian faith, left many people scratching their heads.

It's no small historical irony that Grass and the future Pope were both POWs together in an allied prisoner camp at Bad Aibling. Grass told the Allgemeine that he and the future Pope were friends of sorts, even though Ratzinger was "extremely Catholic" and fond of quoting things in Latin. "He seemed a little uptight to me," said Grass. "But he was a nice guy."

Imagine, then, an alternate history, in which Grass had made his confession about his time in the SS back in that camp to his prim campmate. The confession might well have given him a clearer conscience. But that might have been a terrible thing for a postwar Germany trying to come to terms with its complicity in the Nazi horrors.

If Grass had not been living with this wretched little skeleton in his closet, he might never have written a word. Like 99% of his compatriots, he might have just dusted himself off at war's end, said his 20 Hail Marys, and gone about joining the blithely ahistorical postwar boom.

Instead, a haunted Grass cranked out a series of brutal novels about the war and childhood in occupied Poland, beginning with his powerful 1959 novel The Tin Drum. Those unforgettable narratives, along with a good measure of his public hectoring and politicking, helped his entire country stave off collective amnesia for decades. So while his opponents, and even a share of his friends, are piling on him about the lies he told about his past, it's worth considering that those personal lies helped keep alive important national truths.