Moderate Bill

Hi there! I'm new, and I likes me my poli-matics, so I thought this would be a good debut.

Gunter Grass (Born in 1927)is a German author, left-leaning political figure and Nobel Prize winner. While i have never read any of his novels (I've heard they're good), I have read a political article or two of his, and they were quite balanced and logical. One was a critique of the "Romanticized" relvolutionary communist in which he favored the democratic socialist. He also was very critical of post-Nazi Germany.

Recently, Mr. Grass admitted to being a member of the Waffen SS, a particularly savage branch of the Nazi SS, during the war. Many people were baffled by this, and some took it very harshly. Some have claimed that his admission makes his work meaningless, and have demanded that his Nobel Prize be taken away.

What do you all think?

Here's some sources:

wikipedia article: Günter Grass - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Timesonline: The last man they expected to have an SS secret - Sunday Times - Times Online

Briefing: has Gunter Grass been discredited? - World - Times Online

Kind of a summary: G�nter Grass was in the Waffen SS - signandsight

ceilirose

It almost does seem like some sort of calculated public relations ploy, doesn't it? He doesn't seem really sorry about the non-disclosure. Sort of this is what happened, I never talked about, now I am but so what? Let's move on etc.

For his sake, was is so crazy that you could almost see him falling into this situation. In his youth he might not thought much of it. However as he got older he should have realized that what he was espousing wasn't exactly matching his past life. Sometimes life gets messy and you get caught up in things and stuff just spins out of control.

It's kind of late and maybe I missed some of it but that's my general impression