Last name: Grass
Name/names: Günther
Also known as:
Born: 16 October 1927 (Gdańsk, Poland)
Died: 13 April 2015, Lubeka, Germany
Category: Literature.
Grass Gunter – ur. 16.X.1927 in Gdańsk, German writer, German father, Mother Kashubian. During World War II, he reported to Kriegsmarine, but he was not accepted because of too young age. Incarnate to Reichsarbeitsdienst (RAD), w 1944 to Waffen-SS what he confessed to 2006 year, thus causing a significant storm in Poland. There were voices that he should give up the honorary citizenship of the City of Gdańsk. He explained his behavior in a letter addressed to Gdańsk residents whose content below. After the war, he worked as an apprentice in a stonemason's plant: He studied sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Dusseldorf. He wrote theater arts and poems, rozgłos zdobył powieścią Tin drum (1959). He published, among others. krótką powieść Cat and mouse (1961), novel: Dog years (1963), Local (1969), From the Slimaka journal (1972), The butt (1977), Meeting at Telgte (1979), Headbirth (1981), Rag (1986), Fataches (1992) and several critical collections and comments. Polish motifs appear in his work – The writer's ancestors are Kashubs.
Günther Grass's letter to the President of Gdańsk Adamowicz regarding the service in Waffen-SS:
Dear Sir,
Thank you for the Lord and the letter and trust, which is evidence. Behind him my latest book “Peeling the onion” became the subject of public debate, Information on the significant, not dominant, however, the content of the book of the episode from my youth years, caused consternation, which could confuse the inhabitants of Gdańsk, For me, however, it has taken even a serious existential size.
In the book, which talks about my life path starting from 12 years of age, or year 1939, I report, As in the youthful blindness of the 15-year-old I applied to service on submarines, to which I was not accepted. Instead in September 1944 year, at the age of almost 17 I have been without my participation, incorporated into Waffen SS.
A similar fate was attended by many of my generation. These two weeks of my war commitment, From the beginning to the end of April 1945, I probably survived only by accident.
In post -war years and decades, After revealing the terrible dimension of waffen SS war crimes, this short, But how much an episode of my youth on me, I kept for myself, However, I did not erase him from my memory. Only now, with age, I found the right form of telling about it in a broader perspective. This silence can be assessed as a mistake – How is it just happening – It can also be condemned. I also have to accept it, that honorary citizenship is questioned by many residents. I also have no right to summon everything in this situation, which in the past five decades was the essence of my achievements as a writer and engaged citizen of Germany. However, I would like to keep the right to find out, that I understood this painful lesson, what life did it give to me in his youth: This is the testimony of my books and my political activity.
I regret, that the Lord and the inhabitants of Gdańsk, cities with whom I am very bound by a Gdańsk resident by birth, I buried with a decision, whose undertaking would probably be easier and probably more fair, If my book were already translated into Polish.
At the end of my letter, I would like to thank these residents of the Lord and my city, who still trust me.
When very early, because in the early 1950s I had to understand, that the loss of my hometown, which is a consequence of German wines, is irreversible, I expressed it publicly – I admit – a painful fact, Among other things, when in December 1970 I accompanied the then Chancellor Willem Brandt in Warsaw.
Since then, too, Due to the post -war history of Gdańsk, This loss became much less severe for me, Because it was from the Lord and my city that significant political impulses came out in the form of the still exploding movement of workers fighting for freedom, movement, which then under the name “Solidarity”, He entered history, Like the leader – Lech Wałęsa. In my books, this movement found its literary reflection, and in my political texts I pointed to it, that in Gdańsk it was for the first time to prevent bloodshed thanks to the method “Round table”. I had many reasons to be proud from my hometown, whose spiritual attitude radiated all over Europe, When it was about it, to end the dictatorship in a bloodless way, as well as to contribute to the overthrow of the Berlin Wall and the opening of the road for real democracy. All this gave me comfort, to continue the deadly conversation between Poles and Germans, between Germans and Poles, so that we are all able to get out of the lesson, whatever it would be painful, such a science, which allows mutual understanding.
Best regards,
Günter Grass