Gunter Grass - Waffen SS

Interesting that Grass accepted the accolades all these years and only now, on death's driveway (if not door), has confessed.

But previously unknown documents that emerged this week and obtained by SPIEGEL show that the writer, best known for his novel "The Tin Drum," had already admitted to American military officials in 1945 that he had been a member of Hitler's elite troops.

It is also interesting that the document Walter provided shows him entering the Waffen SS in November, 1944, and describes him as a "student," which suggests to me that he was a trainee. You have a seventeen-year-old boy who enters the armed forces and goes into training in what are for his nation desparate times. Actually, given the situation in November, 1944, joining the Waffen SS was probably a rather smart move. He had a better shot at getting decent equipment, and what would have passed for decent rations in those dark days.

By the spring of 1945, thirteen- and fourteen-year-old boys were being put in field gray coats, given a coal scuttle helmet and a panzerfaust, and told to go out and find and kill an American tank. Should we hunt all of those horrible "Nazis" down? My mother served with a field hospital in Normandy. They got a lot of casualties from the 12th SS Panzergrenadier Division--the Hitler Jungen Division. Boys, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen years of age . . . yeah, those were the worst of the Nazis, the little perishers. German officers taught her German lullabys phonetically, so she could sing them to sleep--they were badly wounded and terrified.

Why do I have this feeling, Finn, that if Grass had not bad-mouthed your hero Bush, you'd be the first to defend his youthful indiscretion and praise his forthrightness in coming clean about it at a time when there was no apparent need to do so? (BTW, the Waffen SS was nothing like the "other" SS; it was stricctly a combat force.)

From what I have read, the anger is coming not from his status during the Nazi regime, but from his denial of such status until now.

Apparently there's already a movement under way to rescind his Nobel Prize. The Nobel committee has issued a statement stating that this would be impossible. There's nothing in the rules to cover such an event. (That was just on the BBC Overseas Service radio news.)

Finn d'Abuzz wrote:

Interesting that Grass accepted the accolades all these years and only now, on death's driveway (if not door), has confessed.

Is he deadly ill? Didn't know that.

He's 79 walter -- he's in the twilight of his life. If you don't think his sense of mortality has something to do with his confession, then you're not as sharp as I've credited you.

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Well, the story went on since August 11 (that's the date when the Fox published that report, quoted by Finn):

Quote:

But previously unknown documents that emerged this week and obtained by SPIEGEL show that the writer, best known for his novel "The Tin Drum," had already admitted to American military officials in 1945 that he had been a member of Hitler's elite troops.

Sources

So I wonder why all this excitement .... after it has been wellknown and excellently documumented by the US authorities for more than 60 years already.

Well may you wonder, and foremost should you wonder why Grass felt the need to reveal this fact (and his account was very much self-describes as a revealtion) if it truly was common knowledge.

Yeah, but Fox "News" just found out about it, so that makes it breaking news. If they ain't heard about it, it ain't real . . .

Yer right, Set. It's Bill O'Reilly and that bunch who are the final arbiters of newsworthiness. Actually, re-reading the Fox report, it sounds like the Algemeine Zeitung was doing an interview with Grass as a promo for the author's forthcoming book of memoirs. The reporter had to ask him something, so he asked "Why are you coming out with this information now?" And Grass, who had to answer something said, "Well, it's been weighing heavy on my mind." That makes it sound as though there's something here that hadn't been disclosed before. Apparently not so.

It is also interesting that the document Walter provided shows him entering the Waffen SS in November, 1944, and describes him as a "student," which suggests to me that he was a trainee. You have a seventeen-year-old boy who enters the armed forces and goes into training in what are for his nation desparate times. Actually, given the situation in November, 1944, joining the Waffen SS was probably a rather smart move. He had a better shot at getting decent equipment, and what would have passed for decent rations in those dark days.

By the spring of 1945, thirteen- and fourteen-year-old boys were being put in field gray coats, given a coal scuttle helmet and a panzerfaust, and told to go out and find and kill an American tank. Should we hunt all of those horrible "Nazis" down? My mother served with a field hospital in Normandy. They got a lot of casualties from the 12th SS Panzergrenadier Division--the Hitler Jungen Division. Boys, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen years of age . . . yeah, those were the worst of the Nazis, the little perishers. German officers taught her German lullabys phonetically, so she could sing them to sleep--they were badly wounded and terrified.