Nobel Prize winner admits Waffen SS role

[cec]

Nobel Prize winner admits Waffen SS role
By DAVID McHUGH
Associated Press Writer

BERLIN (AP) -- German novelist Guenter Grass admitted in an interview that he served in the Waffen SS, the combat arm of Adolf Hitler's dreaded paramilitary forces, during World War II, a German newspaper reported Friday.
Grass was asked why he was making the disclosure after so many years during an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, in which he discusses his new memoir about the war years to be published next month.
"It weighed on me," he said. "My silence over all these years is one of the reasons I wrote this book. It had to come out, finally."
Grass said he only felt shame after the war over having been in the Wafffen SS. "At the time, no," he said. "Later this feeling of shame burdened me."
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung ran excerpts of the interview with the Nobel Prize winner on its Web Site, ahead of a fuller version in Saturday's newspaper.
Grass, 78, is regarded as the literary spokesman for the generation of Germans that grew up in the Nazi era and survived the war. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999 for works including his 1959 novel, "The Tin Drum," made into a Oscar-winning film in 1979. He has long been active in left-wing politics as a sometimes-critical supporter of the Social Democratic Party and is regarded by many as an important moral voice who has opposed xenophobia and war.
He was quoted as saying he had orginally volunteered for the submarine service at age 15, but was not accepted, only to be called up at 17 to the Waffen SS 10th Armored Division "Frundberg," in Dresden, the article said.
Grass said he volunteered for military service to get out of the confinement he felt as a teenager in his parent's house. He had been in the Arbeitsdienst, a force of laborers helping the military.
"It happened as it did to many of my age," he said. "We were in the labor service, and all at once, a year later, the call-up notice lay on the table. And only when I got to Dresden did I learn it was the Waffen SS."
The SS, Schutzstaffel or "Protective Echelon" in German, started as a small personal bodyguard for Hitler headed by top Nazi Heinrich Himmler. It later became a huge organization that ran concentration camps and carried out mass executions of political opponents, Jews, Gypsies, Polish leaders, Communists, anti-Nazi guerrillas, and Soviet POWs.
It included the Waffen SS, a combat force that took part in fighting alongside units of the regular army and gained a reputation as fanatical fighters.
The SS was declared a criminal organization by the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal after the war.
Grass gave few details of his service in the version of the interview on the Web site. He said he managed to give himself jaundice to get out of training for several weeks.
Grass said it was difficult to explain to people today the pull of Nazi indoctrination on teenagers.
He was quoted as saying that, "for me, because I am sure of my recollection, the Waffen SS was nothing frightful, but rather an elite unit that they sent where things were hot, and which, as people said about it, had the heaviest losses."
"One forgets easily, in what a skillful and modern way the Hitler Youth and Jungvolk were raised, as a preliminary level," he said, referring to the Nazi youth organization and its subdivision for younger boys. "Hitler's slogan that "youth must be led by youth' was tremendously effective."
Previous biographical material on Grass, such as a timeline of his life on the Web site of the German Historical Museum, says he served as a helper on anti-aircraft crews, a common duty assigned to teenagers during the war.
He was known to have been wounded and taken prisoner by U.S. forces after the war.


http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...08-11-18-16-05

[odannyboy]

That certainly is a startling revelation, thanks for posting that. I have looked over "The Tin Drum" but never read it. But to hear that Grass was in the military arm of the SS is an amazing revelation from one of the most anti-war German novelists and authors that anyone would recognize (largely for winning the Nobel Prize)

This is simply amazing. It's like Mother Teresa later being revealed to have run a brothel in the basement of a hospital.

Wow. How in the hell did he keep this a secret so long?

[Woodmonkey]

Originally Posted by odannyboy

This is simply amazing. It's like Mother Teresa later being revealed to have run a brothel in the basement of a hospital.

That sums it up. Yes, amazing.

I also wonder how he managed to keep this hidden.

[odannyboy]

I've now read he is going public because his memoirs will be published in September and he will reveal more details. At first I thought he might have been blackmailed by someone but that does not appear to be the case.

[Woodmonkey]

Originally Posted by odannyboy

I've now read he is going public because his memoirs will be published in September and he will reveal more details. At first I thought he might have been blackmailed by someone but that does not appear to be the case.

I'm glad that he did. It would have been quite a jolt if there had been no notice.

I think there are many people around like him. The Nazi movement was pervasive in many European countries (as well as here, but to a lesser degree).

[Caldric]

It is important to remember however that not all Waffen SS divisions comitted atrocities. The 10th SS fought most of its battles in the Western Front against US/Canadian forces. Barely escaping Fallise(sp) Gap and total destruction. If he said he was in the 3rd or 1st SS I would be concerned. By that point in the war there was not like there was a lot of choice about joing anywya.