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| Europe |
| Snake in the Grass |
| 2006-08-23 |
| The pompous, hypocritical hucksterism of Günter Grass. By Christopher Hitchens For many of the postwar decades, Günter Grass was above all fortunate in his enemies. In West Germany, these enemies took two forms. The first was the large number of citizens who were queasy about the recent past, and the second was the smaller number of citizens who were not so queasy. To the first, Grass could address himself in a high moral tone, calling for an honest appraisal of history and for an accounting with the silence and complicity that had marked the era of National Socialism. This represented, among other things, a demand that parents be candid with their children. To the forces of the German right, on the other hand, or with those who did not take easily to the admission of guilt or shame, he could address himself more forcefully. I believe that it was when partisans of conservative Chancellor Konrad Adenauer referred to Socialist challenger Willy Brandt as "the Norwegian bastard" (because he was of illegitimate birth and because he had worn the Norwegian uniform while fighting against Hitler's soldiers) that Grass decided to become an active campaigner for the Social Democrats. I once heard a conservative writer for the Frankfurter Allgemeine refer disdainfully to Grass himself as a man who looked as if he'd recently dismounted from a shaggy pony that had come from the Mongolian steppes. I felt myself obliged to defend him from this innuendo. For all this, one was never able to suppress the slight feeling that the author of The Tin Drum was something of a bigmouth and a fraud, and also something of a hypocrite. He was one of those whom Gore Vidal might have had in mind when he referred to the high horse, always tethered conveniently nearby, which the writer/rider could mount at any moment. Seldom did Grass miss a chance to be lofty and morally stern. But between the pony and the horse, between the stirrup and the ground, there stood (and stands) a calculating opportunist. During the 1980s, Chancellor Helmut Kohl came up with a well-turned but somewhat shady phrase. "The grace of late birth," as he put it, was what had saved many people of his generation from taking part in atrocities. This exemption, which came up again recently when Josef Ratzinger's early membership in the Hitler Youth was disclosed, has applied for over half a century to Grass himself. He was 6 years old when Hitler became chancellor, and thus never had to answer any questions about what he did in the killing fields to the East and the South. To say that he took full advantage of this privilege would be to understate matters. So his decision, in his current ripe and honored state, to admit to teenage membership of the Waffen SS, requires a bit more justification than he's been able to offer so far. |
| Posted by:ryuge |