in the last two years of the war, the SS DID draft... not like in the US but conscription none the less.
Posted on 08/11/2006 1:25:11 PM PDT by lizol
Nobel prize winner Grass admits serving in Nazi SS
Fri Aug 11, 2006 8:37 PM BST
BERLIN (Reuters) - Nobel prize-winning German author Guenter Grass has admitted for the first time that he served in the Waffen-SS, Adolf Hitler's elite Nazi troops.
In an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Grass, 78, said he volunteered for submarine service towards the end of World War Two. He was called up instead to serve in the Waffen-SS in the eastern city of Dresden.
The author, best known for his first novel "The Tin Drum" and an active supporter of Germany's Social Democratic Party (SPD), said his wartime secret had been weighing on his mind and was one of the reasons he wrote a book of recollections which details his war service. The book is out in September.
"My silence through all these years is one of the reasons why I wrote this book," the paper quoted Grass as saying in a preview of its Saturday edition. "It had to come out finally."
One of the most powerful organisations in Nazi Germany, the SS played a key role in the Holocaust, establishing and operating the death camps in which millions died.
The Waffen-SS grew into a force of 38 combat divisions with almost one million men and it was condemned as part of a criminal organisation at the post-war Nuremberg trials.
Grass was wounded in 1945 and sent to an American prisoner of war camp and later became a prominent peace activist. He said he had volunteered for army service as a way of breaking away from home and family.
"For me it was primarily about getting out of there. Out of that corner, away from my family," he told the paper.
"I wanted to put an end to that and that's why I volunteered for the army.
"It was like that for many of my generation," he added. "We were doing army service and then suddenly, one year later, the draft order was on the table. And then I realised, probably not until I was in Dresden, that it was the Waffen-SS."
Grass won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1999. He is viewed as part of the artistic movement known in German as "Vergangenheitsbewaeltigung" or "coming to terms with the past".
Grass opposed the reunification of Germany in 1990, arguing that the country would be in danger of reverting to its role as a war-mongerer.
Excellent story about the german subs at the end of the war. Shadow Divers. If you have any interest you might want to borrow this book from the library.
bttt
It's possible that he was requested to "volunteer", either through bribery or intimidation. Or, he could be blowing smoke up our collective skirts and was an ardent Nazi. Only he knows the truth.
The Waffen SS formations competed with the Wehrmacht for personnel. Especially after the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, all manpower pools were increasingly tapped to the limit. The SS first went after ethnic Germans living outside of Germany - the Volksdeutsche, and foreign volunteers living in places like Denmark, Norway, and other "Germanic" places. After 1943, they even went after non-Germans, building units including Muslim, Ukranian, Lavtian, French, Italians, Serbs, Cossacks, etc. By 1945, half of the Waffen SS were non-German citizens.
After the July 20, 1944 plot to kill Hitler failed, the Waffen SS was given even more priority on the dwindling manpower pool. Their units had first dibs on men and equipment. By this time, many of the men were "volunteers" in name only.
If you were a young man in Germany in late 1944 or early 1945, most probably you were going to end up in some unit. Whether it was the SS or not sometimes depended on which recruiting dragnet got to you first.
The Oxford Companion to World War II has a good discussion of this - see the section on the SS.
1000 bombers with 5000lb bombs and incindiaries? No way to stop it? I'd run like my hair was on fire and my ass was catching.
I wish I could find my copy...
Thanks for the info.
Now it appears not quite to be the case, and that's even more interesting. Was it a cover-up, wishful thinking, or merely Grass's means of excusing himself? Or was it simply a distasteful situation he'd just as soon forget? In any case it certainly colors a generation of literary analysis. IMHO, of course.
Looks like a pattern to me.
in the last two years of the war, the SS DID draft... not like in the US but conscription none the less.
I am skeptical too that anyone was drafted into the SS. In the beginning, the SS was highly selective of its recruits. Later, they were less stringent. But I have not read anywhere that they ever drafted anyone. They were all volunteers.
The following is an excerpt I have read before in regards to Latvian Waffen SS troops.
"In Latvia (and Estonia) the formation of the Legion was largely a result of direct mobilisation. The real volunteers were relatively few. Their proportion did not exceed 15-20%. The consistent application of the adjective "voluntary" from the part of the German occupation rule, was a cunning manoeuvre intended to hide the fact that the mobilisation campaigns were illegal. The inclusion of Latvian military formations into the SS troops also was formal; the Latvian soldiers had no say in the matter. The Nazis simply decided that units to be recruited from the peoples of the occupied countries would become part of the Waffen SS. They needed "human resources" to delay the predictable and imminent military defeat."
Interesting reading. See more at the link....
http://www.mfa.gov.lv/en/latvia/history/latvian-legion/
Is he Murtha's current campaign manager?
"Nazi" means, literally, National Socialist. There was never any transition.
Ping.
LOLOL.....it's not funny but that is damned funny!!! LOL
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