Günter Grass admits SS Past and more

[Jim O]

Thank you for those quotes and links. You've been paying more attention than I have evidently.

Originally Posted by Lancer44

What's next?

Hopefully people calm down, get some perspective (see the big picture as it were), and leave this as a footnote to this man's biography.

[Lancer44]

Originally Posted by Jim O

Thank you for those quotes and links. You've been paying more attention than I have evidently.

My pleasure Jim, we are here to create lasting references. I had been intrigued because on Polish "Virtual Poland" some informations appeared, then disappeared after 1/2 hour...

Originally Posted by Jim O

Hopefully people calm down, get some perspective (see the big picture as it were), and leave this as a footnote to this man's biography.

I hope so, I like this bloke, perhaps I like his books more than him, but can we separate it?

Cheers,

Lancer44

[Jim O]

Originally Posted by Lancer44

I like this bloke, perhaps I like his books more than him, but can we separate it?

I don't think that I can. Again, the big picture is that what he has written is meaningful, despite all of this. And perhaps it is a bit more understandable in fact.

[Helmut Von Moltke]

Grass is a hyprocrite. Attacking his old comrades, denigrating their memories. After all, he served in the Waffen-SS himself. He fought for his country like any other. I remember that he even opposed German re-unification in 1991.

On the other side of the coin, it coudl be happy to think that Grass admitted his service because society is run by freethinkers who know what WWII was actually about. However, it is not. Europe is under the PC heel more than ever. Hopefully he might sing up for HIAG and manage to convince more people that most of the Waffen-SS soldiers were just German soldiers and were not the 'Evil elite unstopaable horde of SS Panzers", as portrayed by popular media.

K

[Jim O]

Originally Posted by Helmut Von Moltke

Grass is a hyprocrite. Attacking his old comrades, denigrating their memories. After all, he served in the Waffen-SS himself. He fought for his country like any other. I remember that he even opposed German re-unification in 1991.

Have you read his books and speeches or are you merely speaking from what you think that you know about him? Can a man not change over the course of his life? Does making a mistake in judgement, even a large one, make one a hypocrite? Let me give you an example of a hypocrite: J. Edgar Hoover (along with his buddy Roy Cohn). Read about his life and it defines hypocrisy. If Grass had publicly spoken up while in the background still espoused Nazi beliefs, that would be hypocrisy. What he was, in fact, was ashamed of his past, and had told a lie that he did not know how to untell, or chose not to correct until now. What his reasons were only he knows for sure, and certainly self-promotion may have been among them. But that in itself does not necessarily make this man a hypocrite, just human.

Some of us with the perspective and wisdom that comes only with years, and for which there is no substitute but those years having passed, will see it differently than you do. I hope that when you are 40 you can speak proudly of all of your deeds in teenage, and still can at 70. Most of us have learned in those years, in fact learning and growing do not stop. And most of us continue to make mistakes and learn from them throughout our lives. When that stops, it's time to die.

In today's New York Times is a letter to the editor by Irmgard A. Hunt, author of On Hitler's Mountain : Overcoming the Legacy of a Nazi Childhood. She was born in 1934 and grew up in, of all places, Berchtesgaden. She even met Hitler as a young child. By age 11 when the war ended she, like Grass, had been immersed in Nazi ideology. Following is her letter. It's worth reading.

To the Editor:

In response to “A Prisoner of the Nobel,” Daniel Kehlmann’s Aug. 20 Op-Ed article about Günter Grass’s confession that he was in the Waffen SS as a young man, I’d add several comments:

First, Hitler called up all men age 16 to 60 at the end of the war. Refusal to serve would have meant being shot. Second, the Waffen, or weapons, SS were not the people who ran the concentration camps.

Third, the young especially had been warped by Hitler’s propaganda and a false sense of patriotism.

Is it so surprising that a young man would try to join an elite, and possibly safer, service like the navy or SS?

The long silence by Mr. Grass and millions of Germans of his generation was based on shame, guilt, cowardice and the hope that a misguided, youthful action would not ruin their lives and careers.

Given these facts, Mr. Grass’s service to humanity through his writings calls for sympathy for his private torture.

Irmgard A. Hunt
Washington, Aug. 21, 2006

His "private torture" is now public fodder. Sad, and ironic.

[Helmut Von Moltke]

thanks for the intresting reply Jim. There are some things one can be proud of when older, while there are some that can't. Same applies to everyone.

K

[Jim O]

This is from Expatica - Living in, moving to, or working in Germany, plus News in English

Grass speaks about Nazi past at book reading

5 September 2006

BERLIN - Nobel literature laureate Guenter Grass talked Monday about his voluntary membership of the Waffen SS at the first public reading of his new autobiography.

The author, a self-appointed left-wing moralist for postwar Germany, has been widely condemned for his belated admission in the book that he joined the Nazi Party's private army as a 17-year-old, during the final months of World War II.

Peeling the Onion (Beim Haeuten der Zwiebel), which deals with the childhood and youth of the writer, has soared to the top of German best-seller lists, in part because of the huge publicity generated by his disclosure after keeping silent for 61 years.

Grass, who turns 79 next month, admitted he had been taken aback by the criticism but vowed not to be cowed into silence.

"It hasn't been easy for me lately, but I still have both feet planted firmly on the ground and will continue to speak out openly," the author said at the Berliner Ensemble where the reading was held...

Whether that was the intended effect I don't know, but it surely was predictable.

[Lancer44]

Originally Posted by Jim O

Whether that was the intended effect I don't know, but it surely was predictable.

I don't believe that money - translate it as - amount of sold books, are behind his actions...
Gunther Grass is looking into quick translations of his book into many languages.

He wants it to be done quickly - he doesn't want to wait.
He want to be looked upon, as the "conscience of the World".

Perhaps he knows more than us??????????????????

[Jim O]

Originally Posted by Lancer44

I don't believe that money - translate it as - amount of sold books, are behind his actions...
Gunther Grass is looking into quick translations of his book into many languages.

He wants it to be done quickly - he doesn't want to wait.
He want to be looked upon, as the "conscience of the World".

Perhaps he knows more than us??????????????????

Perhaps...

I agree that greed was not the issue, that the money was not the motivating factor. He wanted his book to sell for other reasons. And no doubt the English language version is already in the works. I for one will look forward to reading it.

[Helmut Von Moltke]

"Nazi troops".. yawn.. why does this phrase come out al the time?

Not all Americans are cowboys.
Not all Russians are communists.
Not all Englishmen are gentlemen and drink tea.
Not all Frenchmen drink champagne.
Not all Italians drink spaghetti.
NOT ALL WAFFEN-SS SOLDIERS WERE EVIL OR NATIONAL SOCIALISTS



K