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Artykuł pochodzi z pisma "Guardian"


• Silence negates author's words, says Jewish council
• Writer surprised amid calls to return Nobel prize

Samuel Loewenberg in Berlin
Wednesday August 16, 2006
The Guardian

The head of Germany's main Jewish organisation yesterday joined the chorus of criticism whipped up by the belated admission of the Nobel prize-winning novelist Günter Grass that he served in the Waffen SS during the second world war.
Charlotte Knobloch, president of the Central Council of Jews, said Grass's admission negated the novelist's long-time criticisms of Germany's inability to come to terms with its Nazi past.
"His long years of silence over his own SS past reduce his earlier statements to absurdities," Ms Knobloch was quoted as saying by the Netzeitung online newspaper.
The 78-year-old author, who has long been seen as the moral conscience of Germany, revealed his SS service in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper published on Saturday, in advance of the release next month of his autobiography, Peeling the Onion.
"My silence through all these years is one of the reasons why I wrote this book," Grass announced. "It had to come out finally."
Grass said he volunteered at age 15 for the submarine service and was refused, only to be called up for military service two years later.
When he reported for duty in Dresden, he found it was with the 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg. He said that under the sway of Nazi indoctrination he did not view the Waffen SS as something repulsive but as an elite force.
Previously Grass had claimed he was a flakhelfer, a youth conscript forced to work on anti-aircraft batteries in 1944. The word gave rise to a generation who claimed they were the unwilling participants in the Nazi war effort.
The weekend revelations have left many questioning his motives. "It is a disappointment, in a way he has betrayed the whole generation," said his biographer, Michael Jürgs, who said Grass had never spoken of it during their many conversations.
"We adored him not only as a moral icon, but as a figure who was telling the truth even when the truth hurts."
Despite its grim connotations, nobody is suggesting that Grass's service in the Waffen SS means he was involved in Nazi war crimes. Although the SS was in charge of administering the Holocaust, the Waffen SS was a military arm.
Some see Grass's revelations as blatantly self-serving. Hellmuth Karasek, the prominent literary critic and author, speculated that if Grass had revealed his service in the Waffen SS a decade ago, he would have been denied the Nobel prize.
"It was a kind of cowardice and opportunism of conscious," Karasek said.
Others had a more generous interpretation. "He knew that to have made it public many years ago would have diminished his influence in German public affairs," literary critic Walter Jens said.
Grass is said to be surprised at the extent of the reaction to his revelations. The Christian Democratic party, of which Grass was a frequent critic for its association with former Nazis, has called for him to return his Nobel prize.
Former Polish Solidarity leader and president, Lech Walesa, was quoted as saying Grass should hand back the honorary citizenship he was awarded for the Polish city of Gdansk, where he was born.
"If it had been known he was in the SS, he never would have been given the honour," Mr Walesa told the German tabloid Bild.
According to friends, Grass is disappointed at the negative reaction, especially from former allies such as Mr Walesa.
"He didn't plan for the explosion [of negative publicity] and he is disappointed," said Freimut Duve, a former leading Social Democratic party politician who is one of the author's oldest and closest friends.
Mr Duve said Grass had occasionally spoken to him about his past, especially when the two were on human rights trips to the former Yugoslavia together in the 1990s.
"He never used the words SS. He always said he was a young Nazi soldier, and that that was what made such an impact on his life."
But Grass was naive in not foreseeing the reaction, Karasek said. "It is a kind of self-destruction of a holy man, of a saint."
Backstory
Germany's most famous living author, Günter Grass, was born in 1927 in the city of Danzig, now Gdansk, Poland. During the second world war he volunteered for the submarine service, but was ultimately posted to the Waffen SS. He was wounded and captured by American forces and held in a PoW camp, during which time he has recounted that he began to understand the truth of the Nazi regime. After his release he became a labourer and then an artist, living in Paris before settling in Berlin. In 1959 his book The Tin Drum brought him international fame for its portrayal of the plight of ordinary Germans in the Nazi regime, and their denial of the past. Grass became an activist in the Social Democratic party. In his often darkly satirical novels, Grass dealt with his personal wartime history, the peace movement and his opposition to reuniting east and west Germany. In 1999 he received the Nobel prize for literature.

absurdity- absurd
administering- kierowanie, wymierzanie
admission- przyznanie się
belated- opóźniony, spóźniony
betray- zdradzać
blatantly- rażąco
capture- złapać, schwytać
come to terms with- pogodzić się z
conscience- sumienie
conscript- poborowy; rekrut
diminish- zmniejszać
foresee- przewidywać
honorary citizenship- obywatelstwo honorowe
impact- wpływ
in charge of- odpowiedzialny za
plight- ciężki los, trudna sytuacja
post- wysyłać
recount- opowiadać
release- uwolnić; uwolnienie; wydawać (np. książkę), wydanie
report- zgłaszać się, meldować
repulsive- odpychający
revelation- odkrycie
self-serving- egoistyczny, samolubny
sway- władza, wpływ, kontrola
ultimately- ostatecznie, w końcu
volunteer- zgłaszać się na ochotnika
whip up- wzniecać; wzbijać


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