Sunday, August 13, 2006 Posted: 1638 GMT (0038 HKT)
BERLIN, Germany (Reuters) – Germany’s Nobel prize-winning author Guenter Grass has come under attack from writers, literary critics, historians and politicians for his belated confession he was once a member of Hitler’s Waffen SS.
The shock admission from the 78-year-old, famous for his 1957 novel “The Tin Drum”, came in a newspaper interview on Saturday before the release in September of his autobiography “Peeling Onions” in which he explains why he joined at age 17
I read that over the weekend, what I don’t understand is why he’d be scorned now. He was drafted, according to the article, went to Dresden and only then found out he was to enter the Waffen SS.
Grass was the focus of the literature part of my BA and I think his tremendous impact on the Vergangenheitsbewaeltigung (coming to terms with the past) literature is beyond doubt. HG notes correctly that he was conscripted in to the Waffen SS, so little blame can be attached to him for serving. At its peak the Waffen SS numbered nearly a million men, many of those conscripts. It does seem a little hypocritical though given his righteous stance on the Nazi period, especially after he lambasted Reagan for (unwittingly) visiting a cemetery where SS officers were interred.
I feel his post-war career has been one of atonement and that his decision to conceal his past was understandable in the beginning given that the entire Waffen SS was declared a criminal organisation at the Nuremburg trials (although this did exclude conscripts). It does however seem to be a mistake to keep this fact hidden for so long. I think the man fears his end and that by releasing this information while he is still alive he is seeking to preserve his legacy by minimising the damage (i.e. it would have been worse if it had come out after his death).
But Rascal, I invoked Guenter Grass as someone who had deep insight into the German Character. The fact that he was a Nazi seems to merely underline just how “German” he was. After all, it was not exactly a small movement during the 1930s and 1940s. THAT is precisely why I have every confidence that with the right efforts, the US can civilize the Middle East and put paid to these tired theories (fascism). It is no coincidence that the Baathists among others modeled themselves directly on the Nazi model. In a way, we are not through fighting World War II yet. If we could civilize the Germans, we can civilize anyone.
You see, Gunter Grass is not your “run off the mill, got unlucky enough to be around 1944 and be drafted guy”.
He was a follower - or lets take the proper German word “Mitläufer” - of that 68er movement. Which had the chuzpe to be judgemental not just about the war generation … no, no, no … but also constantly and regularly pester the after war generations with their “you bad Germans are all Nazis, ve are ze gut Germans, ve are right, you are shit” known as “ze Nazikeule” in Germany, better known as “reducio ad hitlerum” abroad.
Just look at yourself Huang Guang Chen. You were not there in 1944 and yet (or probably because of that) you cut people some slack and say “well, what other chance did they have? I probably would not have done any better.” You are not even sitting in the glasshouse and yet you do NOT cast stones.
And then on the other hand we got a guy like Grass, who was a “Mitläufer” not just in '44 but also in '68, joining in a movement which accused the later generations of some vague “latent fascism all over ze Reich … err Vest Germany.” I.e. having been involved but still point with the finger at others.
This is hardly scorn. It is pretty well deserved. And a lot of fun to now see 68ers wiggle and squirm and “all of a sudden” starting to show “understanding” for the war generation.
I think the problem is the same for many Germans who took part in the Third Reich. They wanted to forget the loss of the war and the fact that they were betrayed by Hitler and the Nazis. After the war Guenter Grass was left wing. He supported the socialists in (West-) Germany. Maybe now in Germany it’s possible to say ‘I was in the SS. I was drafted. When I was 15 I wanted to joing the submarine forces, but they refused me. Later was draftet by the SS.’ He later did something which was completely different from that what he did when he was 17. He also wrote severall books about the Nazi time, to show how the Germans could believe in that. Germany now is a bit different.
You can ask older Germans about the involvement or experiences or the war. They would ask ‘Oh, I forget all that’ or ‘Not me, there were Nazis, but not me.’
The people who really played a role back then are either dead or very old now. There are still many alive who were pretty young back then … too young to be in deciding positions. Like the pope or Gunter Grass now, teenagers who were rounded up as Flakhelfer, Volkssturm or replacements.
Grass is not scorned for what he did back then. It is the decades later on in which he had no problem to follow a very nasty guilt-mongering movement, which drew a its pseudo-legitimy from demonizing exactly the kind of person he was.
As an analogy … imagine someone join and become prominent in a movement which rails very hard against abortion, including a radical faction of that movement then starting to bomb clinics, and then after many years he suddenly mentions “Oh, btw, we had an abortion too. You know how it is, we were young, we really could not have made it. Sorry.”
Not to be splitting hairs. But what exactly did he do in the SS.
Having observed large military organizations, there are people that push red buttons marked “danger,” and there are people that mop floors.
Sometimes you have to have an abortion or be a Nazi, to be opposed to it. It’s not like humans were born with automatic foresight.
Apparently, he was a member of the 10th SS-Panzer Division, a tank division entitled “Frundsberg”. However, where he served and what his duties were have not yet been revealed.
unit history:http://www.feldgrau.com/10ss.html
Mark my words - it is NOT about what he did back then. It is how he acted like an ass afterwards - very sanctimonious, hypocritical and two-faced. Over decades.
Check a bit how the thing is discussed about in Germany if you like to:
