Critics Urge Guenter Grass to Give Soaring Book Profits to Charity After SS Past Confession
Charity News Online
Critics in Germany called Thursday on Nobel Literature laureate Guenter Grass to donate royalties from his book about his Nazi past to some charity that helps victims of the Nazis. The German author has caused a storm with the disclosure in the self-loathing book that he spent six months with the Waffen SS, the Nazi party's private army. The first print run of the book, Peeling the Onion, had almost sold out Thursday in just two days on sale, the DPA news agency reports.
One of Germany's leading literary journalists, Hellmuth Karasek, and the editor of a poetry magazine that has published Grass's work, Anton Leitner, suggested the outcry might have been provoked to boost book sales. 'The simplest way for you to show that you don't seek material profit from exposing your SS membership is to donate all your income from the book to victims of the Waffen SS,' Leitner said in an open letter on his website.
In the guilt-ridden book, Grass, 78, dissects his odious teenage self, or 'this youth with the same name as me,' beginning with his indifference as an 11-year-old when the Nazis executed his uncle for taking part in a heroic Polish defence of Gdansk in 1939. Grass was called up and began training to be a gunner in a panzer division of the Waffen SS in November 1944, but insists he never fired a shot as his squadron beat a disorderly retreat from the Red Army through eastern Germany in 1945.
Grass said he believed today's generation should read the book to understand what had happened to put their German grandparents' generation into a state of denial about their Nazi past, 'keeping it to themselves and only talking about it now.'
The publisher, Steidl Verlag, said 130,000 of the 150,000 first copies of Peeling the Onion had been shipped to booksellers and a second impression had been ordered from the printers. The book officially went on sale Wednesday, two weeks before the date originally planned. Booksellers around Germany said it was selling much more briskly than previous Grass books.
A public opinion survey in Germany showed 68 per cent of Germans did not believe the writer's credibility had been damaged. The Forsa poll of 1,001 persons for N-TV television found 51 per cent believed Grass should have admitted his Waffen SS service sooner while 29 per cent said he had chosen the right time and 8 per cent said he should have kept it permanently secret.
Guenter Grass, Germany, Waffen SS, charity
Charity News Online
Critics in Germany called Thursday on Nobel Literature laureate Guenter Grass to donate royalties from his book about his Nazi past to some charity that helps victims of the Nazis. The German author has caused a storm with the disclosure in the self-loathing book that he spent six months with the Waffen SS, the Nazi party's private army. The first print run of the book, Peeling the Onion, had almost sold out Thursday in just two days on sale, the DPA news agency reports.
One of Germany's leading literary journalists, Hellmuth Karasek, and the editor of a poetry magazine that has published Grass's work, Anton Leitner, suggested the outcry might have been provoked to boost book sales. 'The simplest way for you to show that you don't seek material profit from exposing your SS membership is to donate all your income from the book to victims of the Waffen SS,' Leitner said in an open letter on his website.
In the guilt-ridden book, Grass, 78, dissects his odious teenage self, or 'this youth with the same name as me,' beginning with his indifference as an 11-year-old when the Nazis executed his uncle for taking part in a heroic Polish defence of Gdansk in 1939. Grass was called up and began training to be a gunner in a panzer division of the Waffen SS in November 1944, but insists he never fired a shot as his squadron beat a disorderly retreat from the Red Army through eastern Germany in 1945.
Grass said he believed today's generation should read the book to understand what had happened to put their German grandparents' generation into a state of denial about their Nazi past, 'keeping it to themselves and only talking about it now.'
The publisher, Steidl Verlag, said 130,000 of the 150,000 first copies of Peeling the Onion had been shipped to booksellers and a second impression had been ordered from the printers. The book officially went on sale Wednesday, two weeks before the date originally planned. Booksellers around Germany said it was selling much more briskly than previous Grass books.
A public opinion survey in Germany showed 68 per cent of Germans did not believe the writer's credibility had been damaged. The Forsa poll of 1,001 persons for N-TV television found 51 per cent believed Grass should have admitted his Waffen SS service sooner while 29 per cent said he had chosen the right time and 8 per cent said he should have kept it permanently secret.
Guenter Grass, Germany, Waffen SS, charity
posted by Lisa Vronskaya at 11:25 AM
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