The conscience of Europe fought in the Waffen SS for two years

Remember the controversy over President Reagan’s visit to the Bitburg cemetary in West Germany in 1985 after it was revealed that some of the German soldiers buried there had been members of the Waffen SS? Guess who was among the Europeans protesting the visit? Gunter Grass, who himself had been a member of the Waffen SS, but didn’t reveal the truth until now, sixty-one years after the end of the war.

When this story first broke, I had thought, why did Grass cover this up all these years? After all, he had been drafted into the Waffen SS at the age of 18 in the last year of the war. As it turns out, he volunteered for the Waffen SS in 1943. He had a lot to cover up, and that’s why he did not reveal this until now, late in his life.

Daniel Johnson writing in the New York Sun has a hard-hitting, two-part open letter to Grass.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 26, 2006 08:08 PM | Send