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Special Report

The Grass Affair: Thinking Clearly in Our Times

By on 4.10.12 @ 6:08AM

A famous German writer raises some troubling questions.

But just what is it that Günther Grass, the most famous living German novelist, thinks “must be said”? The closest he comes to clearly saying what must be said (what he says must be said) appears to occur here, toward the end of a poem he published a week ago and which already has stirred up a storm of controversy:

I’ve had enough of Western hypocrisy [Grass writes]
and I wish that many will want
… a permanent, freely-accorded control of Israel’s nuclear power
as well as Iran’s nuclear installations…

Even for German verse, you have to admit it is heavy handed; thus the original:

…weil ich der Heuchelei des Westens
Uberdrussig bin; zuden ist zu hoffen,
Es mogen sich viele vom Schweigen befreien […]
dass eine unbehinderte und permanente Kontrolle
des israelischen atomaren Potentials
und der iranischen Atomanlagen
durch eine internationale Instanz
von den Regiereungen beider Lander augelassen wird.

All right, Goethe it is not, nor Remarque, nor indeed is it any good against any measure of comparison. For some reason, Mr. Grass, who one would think would know better, feels compelled to put into prosaic “verse,” better suited for political platforms or resolutions written by committees, a demand that both Israel and Iran submit their nuclear weapons and installations to international inspection and control (eine internationale Instanz).

On its face, nothing controversial. It is sort of silly, and sort of embarrassing for a man of Grass’s moral stature to descend into such stupid polemics, but on the surface, let us think like liberals for a moment, like Grass, and consider: Why not call for international controls, or at least inspections? As a concept? As an abstract idea relative to the pursuit of a world at peace?

Indeed why not? We, the United States, proposed this sort of thing in the early years of the nuclear age. We offered to bury the nuclear hatchets and all, proposed an international atomic control commission (ja, eine Instanz). Who would not have? We knew what we had unleashed, and we wished we could do something to control it.

Observe that, at the time, it was because we understood the morality of using the bomb to end the war with Japan — we understood what an awful choice we had made, the destruction of hundreds of thousands of people, many of them civilians, against the destruction of even more hundreds of thousands of people, at least a hundred thousand American fighting men and far more Japanese, including civilians, than were doomed by the attacks on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. That would have been the price of an amphibious invasion of Japan. This is what happens in wartime. You do not choose between the good and the bad. You choose between the bad and the worse.

Men hardened, but not corrupted morally, by such choices, could suggest, in all sincerity, that the best next thing to do was invent an international nuclear regime that would pre-empt such awful choices in future conflicts. At the suggestion of that great original, Bernard Baruch, the Truman administration offered an international nuclear-energy control regime in the late 1940s, but the international communist movement led by Stalinist Russia rejected it. They said we were trying to prevent them from having the bomb, which we already had. They smelled an imperialist plot. But their olfactory organs deceived them; more exactly, their ideological organs deceived their olfactory organs: they could not conceive of a regime — in their minds the bourgeois-liberal, formally democratic U.S. — offering such a deal because it was so outside their concept of what you do with power and the instruments of power.

This is the origin of the long and dreary history of arms control negotiations, wherein we kept trying to understand why the totalitarian communistic enemy refused to see things as we did and proceeded to negotiate with ourselves into a position of weakness. Fortunately, it ended well because there were persons in positions of responsibility, including notably Ronald Reagan and Henry “Scoop” Jackson, who kept their nerve and saw the essential immorality to which the arms-control “process,” culminating in the aptly named doctrine of mutual assured destruction, had brought us. It was immoral, as the political philosopher Albert Wohlstetter pointed out very simply, because it said, “We’ll let you kill our people but then we’ll kill your people.”

But the story did not end there, just as it had not begun with the nuclear age. The problem of arms negotiations, whether the arms in question are battleships or sling shots, concerns primarily regimes, not arms. This is something a certain mindset peculiar to liberal-democratic regimes finds difficult to grasp, because it refuses obstinately to view regimes as motivated by the pursuit of power. It insists that all regimes fundamentally want to share power, not grasp it and monopolize it. This leads to the fallacy, and some would argue corruption, of “moral equivalence.”

The sure sign of the moral-equivalent man is his sanctimonious tone. Here is an example:

If my country sells one more submarine to Israel
one capable of delivering nuclear warheads
on [targets] where there is no evidence of atomic weapons
… I say what must be said

Again, if the leaden verses interest you, a few lines may be perused:

Jetz aber, weil aus meinem Land
das von ureigenen Verbrechen,
die ohne Vergleich sind,
Mal um Mal engeholt und zur Rede gestellt wird
wiederum und rein geschaftsmassig, wenn auch,
mit flinker Lippe als Wiedergutmachung deklariert
ein weiterest U-Boot nach Israel
geliefert warden soll, dessent Speziallitat
darin besteht, allesvernichtende Sprengkopfe
dorthin lenken zu konnen, wo die Existenz
einer einzigen Atombombe unbewiesen ist,
doch als Befurchtung von Beweiskraft sein will,
sage ich, was gesagt warden muss.

Page: 1 2  

About the Author

Roger Kaplan, a Washington-based writer, covers the Middle East and Africa (and tennis) for The American Spectator.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (75) |

Jack in Wi.| 4.10.12 @ 7:53AM

Israel has between 200 and 50o atomic weapons and has been using them for 40 years to blackmail the whole world. It has the Samson Option , which according to Martin Van Creweld targets the whole Middle East aand a lot of Europe. It refuses any and all inspection of it's nuclear facilities. Iran on the other hand has renouncesd nuclear weapons and their use. It has signed the nuclear non proliferation treaties and is under constant inspection of all it's sights. In my opinion Gunter Glass was far to nice in his poem. Israel needs to be diasarmed as soon as possible and heavily inspected. It's constant warmogering and threats are just too much for the world to put up with. It has shown continuelly that it is not a responsible country.

Jack in Wi.| 4.10.12 @ 7:56AM

I would also like to ay that a nuclear free Middle East should be a start to the whole world looking at getting rid of them. It was a dream of Ronald Reagan and what SDI was all about.

tdiinva| 4.10.12 @ 9:41AM

So you want to have a nuclear free world? The last time we have a nuclear free world was August 5th 1945. It was a very unpleasant world. Europe and Asia lay in ruins and the entire world was mobilized for war.

Had we lived in a nuclear free world in the 1950s we would have fought WWIII against the Soviet Union and perhaps Communist China. If we lived in a nuclear free world to day our military budget would be 25% of GNP. We would have a draft, 100 Army divisions, tens of thousands of combat aircraft and a 1000 ship navy.

A nuclear free world is a world of continous warfare among the World's great powers.

JT| 4.10.12 @ 9:59AM

tdiinva, thank you. WW3 would have been fought against the Communists as you say in the 50's most likely. Patton saw it coming and knew we had to prepare for it. The only thing that kept the dozens of Soviet and Warsaw pact Motor rifle and Tank Divisions from not flooding through the Fulda Gap was the threat of the Nuclear destruction that it would trigger in response, not our conventional forces which were heavily outnumbered. Just thank ourselves that this jew hating mental midget from Wisconsin is just that, a jew hating mental midget from Wisconsin, nothing more, and is no way near any decision making capability at any strategic level to implement his idiocy. The chances of world war against the Communists post WW2 was probably 100%.

Jack in Wi.| 4.10.12 @ 10:44AM

I said it was a dream of Ronald Reagan who hoped to end this terrible weapons threat to the whole world. He negotiated huge nuclear arms reductions with the Soviets. I suppose we are now going to attack Reagan as an antisemite and crazy as well.

tdiinva| 4.10.12 @ 10:49AM

Jack of Wi protests too much. I never said anything about anti-Semitism. I simply stated what a nuclear free world would look like. Since you introduced Jews into my comment where Jews didn't not appaer I am forced to believe that you are indeed an anti-Semite

JT| 4.10.12 @ 11:06AM

It spite of your ego bloated opinion of yourself and your self-appointed pacifist moral superiority, no, we are not going to attack Reagan. Reagan wasn't crazy, you are, Reagan didn't hate Isreal, you do. Reagan wasn't an anti-semite, you are. Cased closed.

Occam's Tool| 4.10.12 @ 11:20AM

Simply enough, I care less what a former SS scumbag and a demented cheesehead think about the safety of my cousins.

The fellow who wrote "Storm of Steel" "The Glass Bees," as well as Grass, are both good writers. The Tank cracker who flew 2500 combat mission, Hans Rudl, was a very brave man. All 3 were assholes, however.

A former SS soldier has nothing valid to say on what Israel does to protect itself.

la comedia e finito| 4.12.12 @ 9:25AM

ENOUGH, ALREADY, with the mind-numbling STUPID canard surrounding Grass's Military service..
-----------------------
"Grass attended the Danzig Gymnasium Conradinum. In 1943 he became a Luftwaffenhelfer, then he was drafted into the Reichsarbeitsdienst. In November 1944, shortly after his seventeenth birthday, he volunteered for submarine service with the Kriegsmarine, "to get out of the confinement he felt as a teenager in his parents' house" which he considered stuffy Catholic lower middle class.[8][9] However, he was not accepted by the Navy and instead was drafted into the 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg, only to find out that it was the Waffen SS when he arrived.[10][11] With the Panzer Division he saw active combat from February 1945 until he was wounded on 20 April 1945, captured in Marienbad and sent to an American prisoner-of-war camp. His homecountry was taken over by Soviet and Polish administration and he thus was not able to return home, finding refuge in western Germany.

His military service became the subject of debate in 2006, after he disclosed in an interview and a book that he had been conscripted into the Waffen SS while still a teenager in late 1944.[12] At that point of the war, youths could be conscripted into the Waffen-SS instead of the regular Armed Forces (Wehrmacht), although Grass' division functioned like a regular Panzer division."
-----------------------------

While-OF COURSE- this isn't a defense of serving in The SS..at the same time..Grass WAS NOT A WAR CRIMINAL-NOR EVER ACCUSED OF SUCH.. he WAS a 17 year old draftee.. not so unlike the American soldiers in My Lai...NU?

One of the major troubles with the extreme Right -Wing, in this Country is that they get a "bee in their bonnet(s)" -- however inaccurate it might be-- and to try and make their ridiculous "point", repeat the same inaccurate line, OVER AND OVER AND OVER..AD NAUSEUM...

Occam's Tool| 4.12.12 @ 9:00PM

"Nu?" He fought for the SS, dickweed. Daieynoo. "Nu?"

JT| 4.10.12 @ 12:00PM

SDI was not about eliminating Nuclear Weapons since it never would have been 100% effective and would have been vulverable to a mass saturation attack that would overwhelm it. It forced the Soviets to decide on reductions or going to a new phase in the arms races they couldn't afford. They had to pause and think.
It would also have reduced the chance of an accidental launch or error to start a nuclear war or negated a smaller adversary country from launching a crippling strike such as an EMP burst with a few weapons.

JT| 4.10.12 @ 12:44PM

SDI was never feasable, reliable, or dependable. The Soviets could have overwhelmed the system using cheap decoys and more MIRV warheads and it had no defense against cruise missiles. Elements of the technology exist in smaller missile defense systems. It was not or ever going to eliminate the nuclear deterrence arm of any country other than those of very limited arsenals.

Skippy| 4.10.12 @ 4:25PM

Perhaps, but it did scare the Reds into dissolving their prison-state.
At least that's what Gorby said.

JT| 4.10.12 @ 4:51PM

Sure it did, no doubt. Their system finally hit the wall, but it wasn't going to eliminate nuclear weapons as our dreamer from candyland claims.

JT| 4.10.12 @ 1:32PM

"a start to the whole world looking at getting rid of them"

Yeah, lets get back to years long conventional world wars that sapped resources, killed hundreds of millions, left parts of the planet in ruins, and by ending gave birth to the next one usually in succession after everybody rebuilt and rearmed for the next round. Yeah, thats the good old days, maintain armies of millions as the deterrence instead. I thank God for every Sub Crew, Silo Crew, B52 crew that kept my @ss and my family safe the past 5 decades, the same ones that allow you to sit here and spout your utopian pacifist moralizing dribble. In the nuclear era, war became the enemy, maybe thats what we had to learn the hard way and now have to learn to live with. I'll take the post WW2 era over the earlier alternative any time.

Occam's Tool| 4.12.12 @ 9:17PM

Ernst Boris Chain: a much better German than Grass, and a Nobel Prize winner for a much better reason. Many, many more people still use Chain's work today, unknowingly, than have ever used Grass' work.

Even Jack has had members of his family have infinitely better lives due to Chain's work. Indeed, he himself has benefitted from this Jew's work, directly, unless he is allergic.

Chain is the man who perfected the mass production technique and discovered the mechanism of action and correctly theorized the structure of, Penicillin. He shared the Nobel with Fleming.

Herb| 4.10.12 @ 8:50AM

Why don't you disarm the Israelis yourself, Jack?

Make it happen!

Jack in Wi.| 4.10.12 @ 10:54AM

The Israeli threat to the world's peace and security can end in 3 ways.
I. Sane Israeli's can make a just peace and learn how to live in the neighborhood, even if they keep some nuclear weapons.
2. The world can put a total boycott on Israel and it's whole people, until they cave in and disarm.
3. The whole Israeli war machine can be taken out in a sneak attack. It would necessarily have to use nuclear weapons.

I believe the first option is by far the best one. I follow the Prince of Peace, not the gods of war.

tdiinva| 4.10.12 @ 11:13AM

Well tell me Jack who are they to make peace with? They already of a peace treaty with Egypt and Jordan. The PLO (in Arabic) and HAMAS seek to kill all the Jews. Iran and its ally Hezbollah are on record desiring a second Holocuast so again who is there to make peace with.

Jack in Wi.| 4.10.12 @ 11:33AM

The whole Arab League in 2002 offered Israel a full peace and full trading rights. The Israeli's would have to return to their 1967 borders. There was no mention of Israel giving up nuclear weapons and disarming. I suggest you read the fine book by Alan Hart ' Zionism The Real Enemy Of The Jews, ' in three volumes. In this book Mr Hart, who has covered the Middle East for over 50 years, documents all the numerous times Israel could have made peace. Mr Hart knew all the main players on both sides over the decades.

tdiinva| 4.10.12 @ 5:15PM

Is that the new Protocols of the Elders of Zion?

TrueBlue | 4.10.12 @ 5:37PM

Yes, they did make that offer, if you just read what was on the paper and ignored the fact that the PLO, Hamas, Hezbollah, or any number of other terrorist organizations would not have stopped attacking Israel; OR if you ignore the fact that the 1967 borders are indefensible because it allows a rocket attack to hit the complete opposite side of the country from ANY location around the Israeli border; OR if you ignore the fact that Israel was the one attacked in 1967 and had every right to not only defend itself but retain control of all lands gained in a defensive conflict by international law at the time.

Oh yea, while we're at it lets also ignore that with the exception of Egypt (until the recent Arab Spring anyway) was the only Middle Eastern country to actually follow through completely with a treaty with Israel rather than stabbing them in the back in the middle of the treaty process.

But yea, let's just ignore all of those FACTS in regard to Israel and focus instead on how evil they must be since they have nuclear weapons and have not actually used any of them and never would unless they were attacked by a massively superior force.

Rich Rostrom| 4.10.12 @ 10:13PM

Jordan has also maintained its peace with Israel.

The rest of the Arab world is still technically at war with Israel. Of course they don't dare actually attack Israel, because they know they would lose. They do cheer vigorously every time a terrorist succeeds in murdering some Israelis, and whine about anything Israel does in self-defense.

Vern Crisler| 4.10.12 @ 11:15AM

You follow the anarchists Murray Rothbard and the Lew Rockwell crew, not Jesus.

JT| 4.10.12 @ 11:19AM

Somehow I think you would prefer option 3. The whole Isreali War machine cannot be taken out in a sneak attack, they have not militarily put themselves into that position and won't allow it. They have subs armed with nuclear weapons that would survive any sneak attack, last time I heard that deterrent was still part of the Isreali War machine.

1. The other side doesn't want peace, next.
2. The entire world doesn't get up every morning like you do and indulge in an obsession of what Jews and Isreal are doing every moment of their waking lives, next.
3. Explained above, not going to happen.

People like you(Carter,Chamberlain) in the wrong positions are what cause wars, Strength through deterrence is what prevents them.

Bobloblaw| 4.10.12 @ 9:14AM

Youre a derranged Jew hating fool Jack.

Israel has never threatened any other country in the middle east. It is Israel that is threatened.

The Samson Option doesnt target Europe, unless youre taking about the USSR during the cold war.

Iran has never renounced nuclear weapons or their use

Your big problem is that some Jews survive the holocaust which I am sure you no doubt deny ever happened.

Jack in Wi.| 4.10.12 @ 10:26AM

Go read about the Samson Option. The last time I googled it there were over 7 million hits. Martin Van Creweld is a senior military historian in Israel. His description of the Samson Option mentions targeting most of the Middle East and Europe. He specifically mentions Rome. Israeli nuclear blackmail has been used for 40 years starting with Golda Meir. We are supposed to attack Iran which has no bombs and denounces there use, but not Israel who is a threat to the whole world's peace with it's terrorism, racism, and warmongering.

Now Glass is simply stating the truth. There are continual calls on this site, from the ususal suspects, for nuclear genocide on Iran which has attaked no one for over 300 years.Israel attacks it's neighbors almost every other week, especially since the year 2000.

During the Iran Contra affair over 5 billion worth of military equipment was sent to Iran through Israel. The Israeli's and the USA fund the Iranian terror group MEK which is killing innocent Iranians all the time. It is long since time to send an ambassador to Iran and negotiate not threaten. Iran offered to negotiate all differences with the USA in 2003. Powell, Rice, and Armitage wanted to start immediate negotiations. It was stopped by Cheney, the Neocons and eventually by Bush.

Occam's Tool| 4.10.12 @ 11:22AM

Jack, if you found yourself on the West Bank, hungry and thirsty with a crucifix around your neck, would you want an Israeli soldier or a Palestinian "militant" finding you. The answer is obvious to my 8 year old, but I' m interested in your answer, since I'm sure it will be delusional.

JT| 4.10.12 @ 11:50AM

If the Militant found him, easy answer, he would colaborate with the enemy and convert to Islam.

2Anglico| 4.10.12 @ 1:39PM

JT, best laugh I've had today!!!

JT| 4.10.12 @ 1:48PM

If the Isreali Soldier found him, he would give him to the militant so he could collaborate with the enemy and convert to Islam.

JP| 4.10.12 @ 11:31AM

I've read Martin van Crewald before. He is an outstanding scholar. But, I never heard of the Sampson Option. I mostly read his historical analysis of the logistics of the Schlieffen Plan. It was very interesting

JT| 4.10.12 @ 11:45AM

The Samsom option was a last resort release of the entire remaining Isreali Nuclear Arsenal against any and all allies of those who are attacking it before the State of Isreal would fall. This would have included targets in Europe(Warsaw Pact, Soviet Union) countries who aided and abbetted the enemy forces. This has been highly modified since the fall of the cold war from most sources. Most military analyists see a limited strike on direct enemy military targets as the first and most likely initial use and then escalating if neccesary in a progression of steps. Samson brought the temple down upon himself and the Sea Peoples(Philistines) as the metafor for this concept. Any country with a nuclear Arsenal would have similar strategies in certain circumstances. Old News.

TrueBlue | 4.10.12 @ 5:40PM

It's just the name for the Israeli's mutually assured destruction plan is all. No reason to make a big deal of it since everyone with nukes has one.

JT| 4.10.12 @ 7:56PM

Yes sir, but from our friend in Candyland, Wisconsin's viewpoint those other countries with Nuke Arsenals are just regular people, these are Jews with nukes were talking about here, not people. These are crazed, Zionist fanatics sitting in some secret bunker, keys turned, fingers one inch away from the launch button just waiting for the chance to launch the arsenal at half the civilized world. Jews with the ability to defend themselves, who would have thought it?

Occam's Tool| 4.12.12 @ 9:22PM

Of course, Ernst Chain's family was killed by Gunter Grass' friends and cohorts, and by the friends of ungrateful bastards of Jack in Wi.

But he was a helluva better German and Genius than the feeble pratterings of Gunter Grass.

martin j smith| 4.10.12 @ 8:28AM

Gunter Grass is exactly what is wrong not with the West but with the LEFT and its hatred of real Democracy. It is ready to embrace totalitarianism after all of those killed in WWII at least fought Naziism. The problem is that Communism is no better and this is what we still have to deal with .

Old Soldier| 4.10.12 @ 2:33PM

I disagree. "Real Democracy" has always been a disaster - that is why our Founders built a Republic.

Real Democracy is stupid lazy selfish turds like Grass voting stuff for themselves and lashing out at those they hate. Real Democracy is nothing more than a dictatorship of a majority.

Mass. Crypto Con| 4.10.12 @ 8:40AM

Sadly the answer to you question, in both the US and Europe, there are far too many that are either too lazy or too incompetent to follow your logic, and will embrace Günther's hate-based attitude. You can already see it in the replies to your article.

Patrick| 4.10.12 @ 9:32AM

The article's subtitle should be "An Infamous Former Nazi Raises Some Troubling Questions".

Vern Crisler| 4.10.12 @ 11:11AM

Right. It's easy how people are willing to forgive this former Nazi because he enlisted when he was a mere youth. Tell that to all the people who were killed by these German youths.

At the least, Grass should have admitted his Nazi past early on, and this past should have given him pause before trying to morally equate Israel with its terrorist enemies. It is not the place for former Nazis to criticize Israel, no matter how much time has passed.

Old Soldier| 4.10.12 @ 2:42PM

I would call it "Old Nazi Says Nothing Surprising".

Skip| 4.10.12 @ 10:07AM

Israel has been threatening the world with "nuclear blackmail" while maintaining a strict policy of "nuclear ambiguity"?

Back to Strormfront with you, Jack.

14/88, d-bag!

Jack in Wi.| 4.10.12 @ 10:30AM

Peres, Olmert, Van Creweld, and numerous other Jewish and Israeli sources have mentioned Israeli nuclear weapons and there use. There is no ambiguity about Israel and it's nuclear threat to the whole world except in your hasbaret, lying mind.

John786| 4.10.12 @ 10:31AM

He's been banned from entering Israel. It seems Israel wants it both ways: stop boycotts of isreali cultural organisations while instigating its own boycotts against poets/ artists it doesn't like. Hypocracy at its worst.

Hank Rearden| 4.10.12 @ 11:45AM

Oh, puhleeze. To paraphrase Justice Jackson, a free society is not a suicide pact. It has no obligation to provide hospitality to its enemies.

KyMouse| 4.10.12 @ 10:50AM

What makes Grass's "poem" a poem? Chop up a paragraph into individual lines, and you've got a poem, apparently.

I'll stick with Emily Dickenson and John Milton.

JP| 4.10.12 @ 11:22AM

You must read it aloud in the original Germa. Come to think of it... stick with Dickenson. For me, Frost will do.

KyMouse| 4.10.12 @ 3:39PM

I'll go along with Frost, too, JP, but give me Dickinson anytime for packing the most into the fewest words -- and she was able to do it with rhymes, too, which (to me) shows extra effort and skill. "Because I could not stop for Death..." always gives me chills.

Tim the Enchanter| 4.12.12 @ 1:43PM

Personally, I would take G.K. Chesterton or J.R.R. Tolkein. Hope this fellow Grass doesn't quit his day job, unless this IS his day job. In that case, better that he go on the dole, rather than write his sanctimonious rubbish.

Shane| 4.10.12 @ 10:54AM

As a German,I imagine he would welcome to destruction of Israel.

KennesawJack| 4.10.12 @ 11:29AM

Not called for Shane. That's something reflective of the shallow thought of a liberal.

JP| 4.10.12 @ 11:21AM

Gunther Grass is a great writer. And I don't hold it against him for serving in the Waffen SS as an 18 year old (he was pretty much just cannon fodder for the Soviet Army). But, he does follow a path of anti-semitism by other means - which is par for the course in our post modern age. He loves Jews but hates Isreal. This is akin to saying I love the Pope but hate his religion (If only the Pope weren't so Catholic, then I would really love him!).

There are different kind of Jews. Some are Jewish only by blood. Others possess differing shades of Jewish religious orthodoxy. The Diaspora Jews of the post-war world migrated to Isreal in various numbers over the decades. Orginally, most were idealistic Marxists. Zionism was little different from most Eastern European ideologies in that it attempted to form heavan on earth. WWII and the Holocaust changed that.

Gunther Grass was part of a generation of Germans who were forced fed anti-semitism. Only strong religious or secular-moralistic convictions could fight this off. That is why anti-semitism continued long after the War with the Left. Anti-semitism wasn't a Left vs Right thing in Europe. All were guilty to some degree. Grass is just an aging relic of an age that is quickly dieing out. We should not be surprised by his words. We've heard them all before.

Mosel River Days| 4.10.12 @ 12:09PM

JP, I want to say that is was year 1998, 1999 or 2000 or so when Gunter Grass had to face the music in Germany and Europe. You see, he was confronted with being a fraud. Being an incessant literary sermonizer on WW2 German vets who lied and hid their deeds during WW2 to better enhance their post-WW2 lives and careers, Grass was revealed as a total fraud.

See, up until this unveiling of Grass's German army service, he had maintained another story entirely.

I'm a bit vague on it all now, but even though Grass did not (so it seems) perform any atrocities as a young German army solider, he had lied about it for decades -- while lecturing others on the moral inferiority of those who hid their Nazi pasts. He lambasted Germans of that time who committed atrocities and so uglied the name of Germany and Germans.

There was a much publicized German TV interview in 2000? (I'd have to check, to be honest but don't care to) that was a set up. The TV journalist interviewer was a Grass friend and the questions about his life history and "lies" came out. Grass weeps and cries and forms tears as he "comes clean" in this interview.

It was talked about back and forth for weeks in Germany at the time.

Germans are so proud of their own prize winning internationally known authors and engineers and scientists that Grass has largely gotten a pass on all of this. Germany as a nation is rarely (if ever) very critical of someone that has global standing.

Grass' book sales were down for a few years. His speaking engagements and TV appearances and public moralizings were far fewer. (In the mid 90's he was on TV all the time opining on everything under the sun. He was in talk show after talk show.) He also got this pass because in this TV cry-session interview Grass looked old and frail. It was hard for many younger Germans to hold so much against a guy who looked near death.

But I guess that the joke is on us all. Grass is still around today -- moralizing.

Also: Gunther Grass was a leading voice in Germany to defiantly not aid the USA and President Bush in the long lead-up to the April 2003 invasion of Iraq. Grass argued strongly that Germany should have no part in the Coalition of the Willing. The German government under Gerhard Schroeder with Foreign Minister Joschka Fisher loved Grass for this and this helped mightily in the Grass societal rehabilitation.

Occam's Tool| 4.12.12 @ 9:02PM

It's just too bad Grass didn't get "ironed" by a T-34.

Occam's Tool| 4.10.12 @ 11:23AM

He fought for the Nazis. Screw him.

KennesawJack| 4.10.12 @ 11:30AM

When I was 18, I fought in Viet Nam and damn sure knew what I was doing. So did he.

The great Satan| 4.10.12 @ 8:02PM

What was it you were doing?

Hank Rearden| 4.10.12 @ 11:43AM

I don't see how Mr. Kaplan makes Grass a "man of moral stature." In this "poem" Grass is retailing the popular Leftist line which intentionally confuses cause and effect in the Middle East. He is just a Leftist drone. A man of REAL moral stature would stand up for the struggle of the Jewish state to maintain its existence against the implacable enmity and vilification of the Islamists. Grass is no more taking a moral position than he did in joining the Waffen SS. After all, the SS were the fanatics of the Nazi regime. He could have joined the Army. Why are we wasting time on this worm?

JT| 4.10.12 @ 11:47AM

Because the Leftists love him and their worms are always "GOOD" worms.

JT| 4.10.12 @ 12:52PM

Even if the good worms were former SS worms. WTF does anybody waste the printing space on this pruned up Nazi as though he has any significance. If Isreal doesn't want him in their country thats their business. There are numerious countries that have restricted access to certain individuals they may deem as unsuitable.

vb| 4.10.12 @ 12:34PM

Grass is a total egotist. He has been pointing fingers at the world, including Germany, for years, but since his SS past came out he lost status and airtime. This is his attempt to be relevant. Few except the literati are defending him. He is superficial, too. He once claimed to understand the issue of race in America based on one incident in the POW camp where he was held after the war.

For German speakers who want a summary of the discussion in Germany, visit Die Achse des Guten. They have dozens of links to articles.

Melvin | 4.10.12 @ 12:41PM

What makes me think different is, has anyone every looked at this at a different angle? The world constantly harangues Israel in it's ability to defend itself. Even here in American Spectator, the vitriol oozes out between the letters and lines.
After the war, those who survived the Nazi Concentration Camps eventually settling in the new state of Israel. Even with the extermination of six million Jews there was still hatred within the world that something still had to be done with Jewish situation.
Ever single human being that survived the death camps has seared into their minds the tortuous deaths of family members from which makes in my opinion Post Traumatic Stress Disorder nowadays look like a cold.
The Jews made a blood oath, "Never Again." Survivors through the years have handed down to family members the horrors of the Concentration Camps so that succeeding generations of Jews would never forgot or became quiescent.
Then along came Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein, the second President of Egypt. Nasser had a vision of become the leader of the Arabs and creating a greater pan Arabia. Nasser was going to use Israel has the device to unite all the Arab Countries and if victory was achieved, would put Nasser in a very favorable position to not only be a leader of the Country of Egypt but the whole Middle East.
As history dictates Israel didn't cooperate with Nasser's Pan Arabian ambitions. Nasser and the other Arab Countries realized that they could not be Israel militarily, so they created a new Army out of the ashes of the burnt out tanks in the Sinai, and Golan Heights. The PLO the Palestinian Liberation Organization. The Arabs also had a problem with a people, and that problem was the Palestinians that had just recent got their butts kicked by trying to overthrow the King of Jordan.
Nasser by creating a proxy Palestinian army that would carry on a war of attrition with the Israelis.
This proxy war would be funded by the Arabs of the rich oil states.
No longer how long this war that isn't a war took, no matter how much money it costs it's sole purpose was to grind down Israel politically to the point of weakness that the Arabs would just walk in and defeat the Israelis politically or military which ever came first.
Israel wasn't stupid, they saw that the Arabs were turning world opinion against it by the propaganda of those long suffering Palestinians at the hands of Israel, Western universities were perfect for the absorption of this type of propaganda to turn Israels lone supporter the US against it. Because todays university students are tomorrows political leaders.
By the Arabs creating the Palistinian refugee camps in Gaza, this served two purposes. First was the camps were perfect to generate the picture of a thousand words to Western journalists. Two, it kept the Palestinians being an Israeli problem instead of an Arab problem.
It is no secret that the Arabs detest the Palestinians so keeping them caged up in Gaza was the perfect solution.
"Damn Melvin, did you have to make such a lengthy discussion of this?" Yes, because with all he complaints directed as Israel from this to that, was instigator has been left out........? The Arabs. The Arabs have come out of this mess smelling like roses having the West and the Palestinians doing its dirty work for them.
Does the modern day Israeli get up every morning wanting to go to war with it's neighbors? Its a successful welfare state, Israelis would rather hang out at the beach all day or go on holiday.
A fact that the West doesn't take into account is that Israel treats Arabs(within Israels borders) and Palestinians better than the PLO.
The West never calls out the Arabs and the Iranians on their intentions on the destruction of the Jewish state of Israel. In all honest how many times can anyone remember at least one time where the Arabs and Iran were publicly reprimanded by the West, for their interference and wanting the destruction of Israel?
For Christ sakes even the UN agrees with the Arabs and Iran.
So by reading my lengthy post what the Sam hell do anyone expect Israel to do? Remember at the beginning of my post where Jews uttered their prophetic words right after the Holocaust, said, "Never Again." Damn right, "Never Again."
If the West truly wants peace in that region, then they must publicly criticize the Arabs, Iran, and the Palestinians, that is the only way that peace will come to that region. For that to happen, the West needs to be stop butt kissing the Arab Sheiks who are the unseen hands of that regions and the world's turmoil.

Anthony| 4.10.12 @ 9:59PM

Once Holocaust victims accepted payment from the Germans they ceased being victims and became simply underpaid workers. Imagine taking a dime from people who tortured and murdered your co-religionists. Disgusting.

Melvin| 4.11.12 @ 8:51AM

If that is all that you got. Its weak, very, very weak.

Vox Populi| 4.10.12 @ 12:55PM

I set out to write a poem lauding Gunterrt Grass's favourite institutions, but ran out of rhymes after "Stinker" and "Treblinka."

How about:

"One, tweo, three, four ...
How many Jews did you gas in the war?

The sky is blue, so is the sea
Just like the crystals of Zyclon-B

Oh, Gunter Grass, my modest hope
is you'll join Eichmann on a rope.

Gunter, you can come out of hiding,
The trucks have left the railway siding.

"There was a great writer, Gunter Grass
Who tried to lick the Fuhrer's arse."

A moral prophet, and then some,
a stinking piece of Nazi scum."

Vox Populi| 4.10.12 @ 12:55PM

I set out to write a poem lauding Gunterrt Grass's favourite institutions, but ran out of rhymes after "Stinker" and "Treblinka."

How about:

"One, tweo, three, four ...
How many Jews did you gas in the war?

The sky is blue, so is the sea
Just like the crystals of Zyclon-B

Oh, Gunter Grass, my modest hope
is you'll join Eichmann on a rope.

Gunter, you can come out of hiding,
The trucks have left the railway siding.

"There was a great writer, Gunter Grass
Who tried to lick the Fuhrer's arse."

A moral prophet, and then some,
a stinking piece of Nazi scum."

Rurik| 4.10.12 @ 12:58PM

Oh its just a wee bit of "fratulence", a German passing Grass.

Old Soldier| 4.10.12 @ 2:37PM

Why should I care about an old Nazi who hates Jews and Israel?

What's next? A Communist who hates capitalists?

cicero| 4.10.12 @ 4:03PM

The West long ago fell prey to the delusion of the moral equivalence of the Jewish state and her neighbors. This gives rise to the call for mutual diarmament. The same argument is used in the calls for the unilateral disarmament of the United States so that the Soviets and their philosophical compatriots will take our example and do the same. How delusianal do you have to be? The United States, and Isreal for that matter, have been peace loving and seeking societies for most of their history. (The Mexican War seems the only real aberration for the U.S., and Isreal has never attacked anyone except in defense.) Their enemies, on the other hand, have totally different historues in that regard. This malady, the delusion of mutuality, infects too many in the U.S. and Isreal. I cannot understand this fleeing from reality. It will, as it always has, end in war and disaster.
If Isreal hopes ti survive, it needs to drive all of the Arabs and their surrogates out of Isreali territory. This includes the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights. It will then be able to defend itself. If the Arabs wish to destroy Isreal, they only need to continue in they way they have. Isreal will take heat in the form of the weeping and wailing of the Arabs and their cronies. The Palistinians will have to find another reason for being. The Isrealis wil prosper,. and the West will get over it. While Isreal and the United States cannot imagine that everyone does not think like they do, what with their value for the individual human life, history should have demonstrated graffically to them that most of the rest of the world are willing to sacrifice the individual for the goal of the powerful.

The great Satan| 4.10.12 @ 7:58PM

Yes, yes, of course, because the motives of the U.S. are as pure as the driven snow. Puerile.

jstwndring| 4.10.12 @ 11:09PM

What's the matter Grass? Is 67 years just too long to pretend to be tolerant of the Jews? Your attempt to disguise your contempt for Israel with your "demand" that Iran turn over control of its nuclear installations is weak. You know damn well they never will. And I know you don't care anyway. No. Your real objective is to disarm and expose the Jews to their enemies. Why do you not mention Iran's daily threats to annihilate Israel? As Mr. Kaplan points out, there is no moral equivalency here. Israel never threatened an attack on Iran until it was clear that nothing else would deter them from carrying out a nuclear strike on Israel. Israel is only interested in self-defense. The real problem is (as always) another violently aggressive Islamic state threatening to attack Israel again. Anyone who expresses a concern for peace in the middle east while refusing to acknowledge the root of the problem--namely, Islam--is either a liar, or, an enemy of freedom and liberty. Or, just blind, deaf, dumb, and ignorant of history.

Bill X| 4.10.12 @ 11:34PM

Israel is a responsible ally surrounded by billions of Muslims who want to complete what Hitler started. It's stupid to put Israel in the same class as Iran. Iran will undoubtedly use its nuclear weapons as soon as it has them. Expect Washington DC or New York to by nuked by a short range missile launched from a ship.

Soljerblue| 4.10.12 @ 11:52PM

"What really must be said, or asked rather, is whether Günther Grass represents a trend toward Israel-hatred in European literary and intellectual circles, or whether his is an isolated case; or again whether this is a form of acquiescence toward the power of Islamic radicalism somewhat..."

So-called 'anti-Zionism' is nothing more than the latest incarnation of anti-semitism. And it has been on exhibition for years in Europe. Otherwise, why would an old Nazi thug feel safe in 'outing' his Waffen SS past(tank gunner in the 10th Waffen SS panzer Division Frundsberg). To couch it as consern over a nuclear middle east as he does, or divestiture and sympathy for the palestinians, as the European and American left does, is window dressing. Behind their sophist nonsense one can see the old yellow stars of David, and the cry "Juden Raus". Fascism is fascism, easy to spot -- whether in the streets, the academy, or the postings of some on AS

Dan Bartholomew| 4.13.12 @ 7:15AM

I appreciate the article, but please get the German version right. Just at a glance: "augelassen" should be "zugelassen." "Jetz" should be "Jetzt." You might have done cut & paste & avoided such problems. See http://www.sueddeutsche.de/kul.....-1.1325809

Dan Bartholomew
Orem, UT

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