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Nobel Prize Winner was SS Member
Topic Started: Aug 12 2006, 06:03 AM (280 Views)
George K
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Finally
When I was in college, I remember reading The Tin Drum, by Gunter Grass. Today, Reuters breaks the story that he was a member of the WaffenSS.

Quote:
 
BERLIN (Reuters) - Nobel prize-winning German author Guenter Grass has admitted for the first time that he served in the Waffen-SS, Adolf Hitler's elite Nazi troops.

In an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Grass, 78, said he volunteered for submarine service toward the end of World War Two. He was called up instead to serve in the Waffen-SS in the eastern city of Dresden.

The author, best known for his first novel "The Tin Drum" and an active supporter of Germany's Social Democratic Party (SPD), said his wartime secret had been weighing on his mind and was one of the reasons he wrote a book of recollections which details his war service. The book is out in September.

"My silence through all these years is one of the reasons why I wrote this book," the paper quoted Grass as saying in a preview of its Saturday edition. "It had to come out finally."

One of the most powerful organizations in Nazi Germany, the SS played a key role in the Holocaust, establishing and operating the death camps in which millions died.

The Waffen-SS grew into a force of 38 combat divisions with almost one million men and it was condemned as part of a criminal organization at the post-war Nuremberg trials.

Grass was wounded in 1945 and sent to an American prisoner of war camp and later became a prominent peace activist. He said he had volunteered for army service as a way of breaking away from home and family.

"For me it was primarily about getting out of there. Out of that corner, away from my family," he told the paper.

"It was like that for many of my generation," he added. "We were doing army service and then suddenly, one year later, the draft order was on the table. And then I realized, probably not until I was in Dresden, that it was the Waffen-SS."

Grass won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999. He is viewed as part of the artistic movement known in German as "Vergangenheitsbewaeltigung" or "coming to terms with the past".

Grass opposed the reunifaction of Germany in 1990, arguing that the country would be in danger of reverting to its role as a war-mongerer.


Does this history change anyone's impressions? Does the fact that he hid his military service change anyone's opinions about his credibility? I, for one, know several people (no longer living) who were "encouraged" to join the Hitler Youth, and other nefarious organizations - who never spoke of it, who were ashamed.
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John Jacob Jingoism Smith
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It's a complicated issue, because at what point does a young man with a young man's lack of wisdom and judgement suppose to realize that 'serving your country' (or obeying your leaders) has crossed over into aiding and abetting evil?

That said, I am not particularly impressed with his confession so late in life, when he has little to lose anymore.

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kentcouncil
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John Jacob Jingoism Smith
Aug 12 2006, 09:37 AM
It's a complicated issue, because at what point does a young man with a young man's lack of wisdom and judgement suppose to realize that 'serving your country' (or obeying your leaders) has crossed over into aiding and abetting evil?


His writing since indicates he does realize this. So many of his contemporaries have tried to deny the complicity of the German people in the atrocities committed by the Nazis, but he hasn't. I'm inclined to cut him some slack.
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Luke's Dad
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John Jacob Jingoism Smith
Aug 12 2006, 10:37 AM
It's a complicated issue, because at what point does a young man with a young man's lack of wisdom and judgement suppose to realize that 'serving your country' (or obeying your leaders) has crossed over into aiding and abetting evil?

That said, I am not particularly impressed with his confession so late in life, when he has little to lose anymore.

Actually, at this stage of his life, he is harming and potentially ruining one thing of tremendous value. His legacy. People will go to extreme lengths to protect the way they'll be remembered. To come out like this on his part is very brave.
The problem with having an open mind is that people keep trying to put things in it.
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John Jacob Jingoism Smith
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Kent,

Actually what I meant was young men of enlistment age, not with the benefit of hindsight.

How is a young man of army age supposed to determine if a call to arms from his leaders is evil or not, and if he does believe it to be evil, is it his duty to rebel against his leaders?
Jingoism

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Phlebas
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Quote:
 
There once was a musician; his name was Meyn and he played the trumpet too beautifully for words.


The opening sentence of one of the greatest chapters of a novel ever written.

Grass, like a lot of people, joined groups during deperate times, he later regretted being associated with. (so much for his association with the Social Democratic Party. I wonder how he felt about the SS. :D
Random FML: Today, I was fired by my boss in front of my coworkers. It would have been nice if I could have left the building before they started celebrating. FML

The founding of the bulk of the world's nation states post 1914 is based on self-defined nationalisms. The bulk of those national movements involve territory that was ethnically mixed. The foundation of many of those nation states involved population movements in the aftermath. When the only one that is repeatedly held up as unjust and unjustifiable is the Zionist project, the term anti-semitism may very well be appropriate. - P*D


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jon-nyc
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jeez, next thing ya know we'll find out the pope was in the hitler youth organization.

In my defense, I was left unsupervised.
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John D'Oh
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Since of the top of my head there were about 1 million members of the SS, I don't really think this should be an issue. He's clearly not a Nazi sympathiser now, so why make a big deal of it?
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Mikhailoh
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I don't get any impression that he 'hid' his past. Many American vets from that era will not speak of their experiences, my father among them. I would guess it wopuld be moreso with German vets, having lost badly and had much of their homeland decimated for it. Can you imagine what it must have been like to serve in Dresden late in the war? Why would one want to dredge that back up?

I don't see an issue here. Being silent is not the same as concealment.
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George K
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Quote:
 
Since of the top of my head there were about 1 million members of the SS, I don't really think this should be an issue. He's clearly not a Nazi sympathiser now,

Quote:
 
Grass, like a lot of people, joined groups during deperate times, he later regretted being associated with. (so much for his association with the Social Democratic Party. I wonder how he felt about the SS.

Quote:
 
I don't get any impression that he 'hid' his past. Many American vets from that era will not speak of their experiences, my father among them. I would guess it wopuld be moreso with German vets, having lost badly and had much of their homeland decimated for it. Can you imagine what it must have been like to serve in Dresden late in the war? Why would one want to dredge that back up?


Interesting. Yes, the SS had many many member as did the Hitlerjugend. I just found it interesting that Grass chose this time to tell the story. What motivated him? As Mik said, people don't like to talk about it. I had a close relative who was a member of the Hitlerjugend. I found out from his mother, as a matter of idle conversation - I never asked.

Bombing? My parents tell me the most frightening thing about the war was the night air raid sirens going off, going to the shelters as they heard the Allied bombers approach, and not knowing what, if anything would be left when they emerged.
A guide to GKSR: Click

"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles.
- Klaus, 4/29/18
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Dewey
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HOLY CARP!!!
Quote:
 
"...at what point does a young man with a young man's lack of wisdom and judgement ... realize that 'serving your country' (or obeying your leaders) has crossed over into aiding and abetting evil?"


At the age at which he learns the difference between good and evil, and the consequences of both; which I suggest is substantially younger than eighteen. "Young man" or no, he rightly bears a man's responsibility for a man's actions. That's not the complicated part of the story at all.

The truly complicated part is, at what point does forgiveness enter the picture? In what manner and degree? What is justice in this particular instance?

I don't agree with people who would relieve someone like this of responsibility for their past actions based merely on their youth and lack of experience. There may certainly be other, legitimate reasons for forgiveness, but that doesn"t include ignoring the reality of the person's actions as nothing more than a youthful indiscretion for which they have no meaningful culpability.

I don't know the circumstances or details of his military service, or anything of his postwar existence, so I couldn't answer any of those questions. I'm just thinking out loud about refining the actual issue.
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AlbertaCrude
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The Waffen SS was Heinrich Himmler's private army- well equipped and well trained. Early on Waffen SS were recruited on the basis of their stereotypical Aryan features and superior athletic abilities. As well they had to demonstrate absolute loyalty to the Nazi ideology. Without having all the details surrounding Grass' recruitment, I would wager that by 1944 he was taken into the SS because his physique either matched the Aryan ideal or he was extremely athletic. As well, by 1944 the Red Army had decimated many of the Waffen SS divisions and it was therefore was desparate for recruits to defend the homeland. In any case by 1944 the German U-boats had lost the battle of Atlantic and most were in dry dock. Soldiers were needed on the front not roaming the oceans or manning the dockyards.

It would be interesting to learn to which Waffen SS division he was assigned, what his rank was and what was his training. Many were simply grunt infantrymen others were trades and equipment logistics personnel. Very few had anything to do with concentration and extermination camps.
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Nina
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I don't really get the question. You asked if this affects his "credibility"?

He's a novelist. If he writes good novels (which he does) then he's a credible novelist. He's written almost exclusively about World War II, German guilt, and the inhumane nature of war. It sounds like his experiences have helped him write better novels.

As to his credibility in other matters, I have no idea.
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John Jacob Jingoism Smith
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Nina,

Oh there you go again being =logical=. ;)

Dewey,

Following your logic would you say, then, that if a young man were convinced his country's military actions are immoral, that he should at the minimum refuse his services in the armed forces, if not outright resist his country's efforts?
Jingoism

You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.
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David Burton
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George K
Aug 12 2006, 08:38 AM
Interesting. Yes, the SS had many many member as did the Hitlerjugend. I just found it interesting that Grass chose this time to tell the story. What motivated him? As Mik said, people don't like to talk about it. I had a close relative who was a member of the Hitlerjugend. I found out from his mother, as a matter of idle conversation - I never asked.

Bombing? [My parents] tell me the most frightening thing about the war was the night air raid sirens going off, going to the shelters as they heard the Allied bombers approach, and not knowing what, if anything would be left when they emerged.

Your parents, or someone else's?
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Dewey
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John Jacob Jingoism Smith
Aug 12 2006, 12:54 PM
Dewey,

Following your logic would you say, then, that if a young man were convinced his country's military actions are immoral, that he should at the minimum refuse his services in the armed forces, if not outright resist his country's efforts?

Yep.

Of course, his convictions had better be strong enough to accept the probable consequences of that decision, too.
"By nature, i prefer brevity." - John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, p. 685.

"Never waste your time trying to explain yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding you." - Anonymous

"Oh sure, every once in a while a turd floated by, but other than that it was just fine." - Joe A., 2011

I'll answer your other comments later, but my primary priority for the rest of the evening is to get drunk." - Klaus, 12/31/14
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John Jacob Jingoism Smith
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Yes. Of course there are consequences.
Jingoism

You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.
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John D'Oh
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John Jacob Jingoism Smith
Aug 12 2006, 05:12 PM
Yes. Of course there are consequences.

Snide aside: I imagine that one possible consequence of making the announcement at this point is that his memoirs may sell rather well.
What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?
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TomK
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John D'Oh
Aug 12 2006, 12:09 PM
Since of the top of my head there were about 1 million members of the SS, I don't really think this should be an issue. He's clearly not a Nazi sympathiser now, so why make a big deal of it?

But you have to admit that if someone hands you an all black uniform with "Death Heads" all over it--you just might get the feeling that you're playing for the wrong team. I think I would.
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apple
one of the angels
i still like The Tin Drum
it behooves me to behold
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John D'Oh
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TomK
Aug 12 2006, 09:35 PM
John D'Oh
Aug 12 2006, 12:09 PM
Since of the top of my head there were about 1 million members of the SS, I don't really think this should be an issue. He's clearly not a Nazi sympathiser now, so why make a big deal of it?

But you have to admit that if someone hands you an all black uniform with "Death Heads" all over it--you just might get the feeling that you're playing for the wrong team. I think I would.

Hugo Boss designed that stuff, as Mr. Thumper pointed out to me some time ago. Some people will do just anything for designer clothes.

Doesn't anybody else secretly think that Darth Vader is a lot cooler than Luke 'I'll never work in this town again' Skywalker? Yes, I know, there's all that death star nonsense, but to your average spotty teenage boy, black is the new black.
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JBryan
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TomK
Aug 12 2006, 08:35 PM
John D'Oh
Aug 12 2006, 12:09 PM
Since of the top of my head there were about 1 million members of the SS, I don't really think this should be an issue. He's clearly not a Nazi sympathiser now, so why make a big deal of it?

But you have to admit that if someone hands you an all black uniform with "Death Heads" all over it--you just might get the feeling that you're playing for the wrong team. I think I would.

The SD had uniforms with Death heads on it. The SS had the twin lightning bolts we have all become familiar with.

Towards the end of the war the SS was becoming far less exclusive. I had a friend years ago who served in the SS and he was from Latvia. That is the way it went towards the end as their ranks became more depleted.
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Mikhailoh
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I makes very little difference what team it is when the choice is join up or be shot. One's range of options is limited.
Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball
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