Posted on 08/19/2006 7:46:56 PM PDT by neverdem
Op-Ed Contributor
INDIGNATION, it seems, is the most gratifying of all emotions. Nothing is quite so soothing as the feeling of superiority over sinners who have committed offenses that we are sure to be innocent of and that allow us to purse our lips in disdain: another giant with feet of clay!
I have been drawn to these sober reflections by the Günter Grass affair. So this scourge of hypocrites has shown himself a hypocrite, too! This breaker of German taboos had a taboo of his own! This teacher of generations of young Germans, who taught them to ask freely at home, “What did you do in the war, Daddy?” failed to obey his own injunctions! This moralizing critic of German prosperity has greatly enjoyed his own and seems to be advertising his new autobiography with some usable dark news! Now, at 78, he turns out to have been a Waffen SS-man — that’s right, the military branch of the notorious Nazi corps that played an important role in the Holocaust and other atrocities. Shocking, and so enjoyable!
Well, SS-boy really. As far as we know — and the autobiography, we hope, reveals all — Mr. Grass did not volunteer to join these future mass murderers but was drafted. And we do know that he was only 17 at the time. These were the months, in the spring of 1945, that the Nazis knew that the war was lost, and when they, as one says, scraped the bottom of the barrel for more troops. Yet the storm over his long silence about his youthful sin has secured Mr. Grass, as he predicted, an international storm of disapproval.
He has been asked to relinquish his Nobel Prize in Literature and his honorary citizenship of his birth city, Poland’s Gdansk, once Danzig...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
An Open Letter to Günter Grass (Waffen SS member, just recently revealed)
Tell me why I am not surprised.
There is NO dishonesty that the Left is incapable of honoring.
Why is it these leftwingnuts when faced with a dead Nazi are always so huffy, yet when we find a live one it's all we can do to keep them from kissing his boots.
The left has a de-facto alliance with the Islamo-fascists now, so it stands to reason that they should try to get us to understand Gunter Grass' "predicament" (he was young, he was "ashamed" after the war, etc.). Compare this with the vitriolic diatribes against George W. Bush.
And by the way, has any representative of the MSM informed his audience about the alliance between the Arabs in the Middle East, the Bosnian Muslims, and the Nazis during World War II? About the doings of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem? Nooo...they are freedom fighters now.
In 1943 17 year olds were not being drafted into the Waffen SS. That went against the entire raison d'etre of the institution.
Well, actually, the Waffen SS HAD left behind the volunteer principle, and was a conscript mass by 1943, as was the Luftwaffe and Navy.
Central plannning of manpower: the SS had ever increasing allotments of manpower as the war went on. Manpower allotments were power, and not to be turned down. That is why there were Luftwaffe Panzer divisions: there were not enough aircraft, so they created new formations. Rommel's son also was drafted (as were all health young men) and made it into the Luftwaffe.
Of course the Wehrmacht had long been conscripts.
In 1943 17 year olds were drafted into the Waffen SS. Their losses, coupled with their expansion, necessitated it.As for the 'raison d'etre of the institiution'; that went out of the window with the enrollment of Muslims, Tartars, Slavs, Croatians, Waloons, Ukrainians and Russians in Waffen SS divisions.
It doesn't really make a difference, because the division he served in, the 10th SS Panzer Division, FRUNDSBURG, was never alleged to have committed a war crime or atrocity.
It is absolute fact that no one ever dug up war crimes against this unit. I think this ought to weigh heavy upon any negative cmments surrounding his time in service.
But the interesting thing I see is that he sat and waited...almost 60 years...to tell this story. After the Nobel prize and all of the German support of the past 60 years. The publisher was only going to print around 150,000 copies of the book...which probably got Grass a fair amount of income. But now with the media attention...there is a second edition of 100,000 additional books...and perhaps even more. Grass hasn't turned out alot of books in the past 20 years and I suspect that this is his last one and he is hoping to live off the income for his years to come. You have to remember....living in Germany society circles...it costs money and he isn't drawing the vast income that he did in the 1960's or 1970's. And with the mighty state-run broadcasting system helping to defend him in Germany...the guy comes off looking like the Pope...pure and clean. Almost amusing how he did this and got away with it in public circles in Germany.
"I vas only following orders"
Leni Riefenstahl claims she had little choice too. Fritz Lang left Germany although he could also have become a propagandist for the Reich. I believe he even left his wife behind because she sided with Nazi Germany.
If the guy was truly drafted, anyone blaming him will have to blame the Pope as well for Nazism. I find it hard to believe he was drafted in 1943, when the majority of Germans still thought they could win the war, but maybe its true. I didn't think the Waffen SS drafted people even in 1945 because they were so particular about Aryans.
Please see my post#9.
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