He was one of Germany's best-known writers after the Second World War and was long regarded as a moral authority. Günter Grass later came under criticism - partly because of his SS past.
In 1959, the hitherto unknown author became famous overnight with his novel "The Tin Drum". When the Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded him the Nobel Prize in Literature for his life's work 40 years later, on December 10, 1999, the committee justified its decision by pointing out, among other things, that Grass "draws the forgotten face of history in cheerful black fables ". The jury dared to assume that "The Tin Drum" will be one of the "enduring literary works of the 20th century".
Günter Grass:A child of war
"We are appalled to see that since its brother, socialism, was declared dead, capitalism has begun to rampage unchecked," Grass said in his 1999 Nobel Prize for Literature speech.Günter Grass was born on October 16, 1927 in Danzig. His parents owned a grocery store in Langfuhr, a suburb of Danzig. Grass attended elementary school and high school Conradinum in Danzig. At the age of 15 he volunteered for the Wehrmacht. He was initially an Luftwaffe helper and was drafted into a Panzer Division of the Waffen SS at the age of 17. When Grass was taken prisoner at the end of the war, he also revealed himself to the Americans as a member of the Waffen-SS. However, he did not publicly admit this membership until August 2006. Previously, biographies about Grass always said that he became an anti-aircraft helper in 1944 and was then called up as a soldier.
Studying in sculpture
After months of being a prisoner of war in Bavaria, the young Grass first earned his living as a farmhand and worker in a potash mine near Hildesheim. From 1947 he worked for a stonemason in Düsseldorf. From 1948 to 1952 he studied graphics and sculpture at the Düsseldorf Art Academy, then until 1956 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin. During this time, Grass presented himself as a sculptor with his first exhibitions of sculptures and graphics in Stuttgart and Berlin.
"The Tin Drum" made Günter Grass famous
Günter Grass in 1960. A year earlier, the young author had caused an international sensation with the "Tin Drum".But Grass was already active as a writer:He found his first public recognition in 1955 at a poetry competition organized by Süddeutscher Rundfunk and in the socially critical "Group 47". Up until 1958, he mainly produced short prose, poems and plays, which Grass himself classified as "poetic" or "absurd" theater. In 1958 his play "Onkel, Onkel" premiered on the stages of the city of Cologne. In the same year he received the Group 47 prize for a reading from the manuscript "The Tin Drum".
Günter Grass' adopted home is Lübeck
In his first marriage, Günter Grass was married to the Swiss dancer Anna Margareta Schwarz from 1954. He lived with her in Paris from 1956 to 1959, then in Berlin. From this marriage came his daughter Laura and his three sons:the twins Franz and Raoul and Bruno. He also had daughters Helene and Nele with two other women. From 1979 Grass was married to the organist Ute Grunert, who brought two sons into the marriage. At the end of 1995, Grass moved to Lübeck with her.
"Danzig Trilogy" established reputation as a passionate moralist
Grass established himself as one of the leading epic poets of his generation with his "Danzig Trilogy". The developmental novel "Tin Drum", with which he achieved his international breakthrough in 1959, the novella "Katz und Maus" (1961) and the novel "Hundejahre" (1963) found a wide and critical response with their excessive and provocative language. They not only demonstrated Grass' mastery of storytelling, but also established his reputation as a passionate political moralist.
The political man
Günter Grass (left) campaigned for the SPD and their chancellor candidate Willy Brandt in 1965.With his political commitment, especially in the 1960s, which was unusual for a German writer, Grass became an important figure in the Federal Republic. He campaigned for the SPD in 1965, 1969 and 1972 and represented the type of left-liberal intellectual who consistently refused anti-democratic practices. In January 1967, Grass demanded the recognition of the Oder-Neisse border. He sympathized with the "Prague Spring" and continued his dialogue with the Czech writer Pavel Kohout even after the Warsaw Pact countries invaded Prague. He took part in protest actions in East and West against the "emergency laws", against "authoritarian clericalism", "reactionary federal politics" and the "suppression of freedom in the GDR".
Many of his works from this period deal with the responsibility of intellectuals and are characterized by the political commitment of the author - such as the German tragedy "Die Plebejer prob den Aufstand" (1966), the period piece "Davor" (1969), the novel "Orts drugged" (1969) and the short story "From the Diary of a Snail" (1972).
- "The Tin Drum":Günter Grass' controversial novel
- Günter Grass:"The Butt"
- The box. Darkroom Stories
Fighters for Peace
After 1972, Grass withdrew from the political public for a few years, but continued to make a name for himself with drawings, poems, graphics and art exhibitions. He underlined his international fame as an epic poet with the novel "Der Butt", published in 1977. In 1980 the controversial book "Head Births or The Germans Are Dying Out" followed. In the years that followed, Grass turned his attention to lithography and sculpture. In 1986 he published the large prose work "Die Rattin", which also reflects his commitment to the environmental and peace movement.
Sometimes with the SPD, sometimes away from it
After the break-up of the social-liberal coalition in Bonn in 1982, Grass became a member of the SPD and became increasingly involved in the peace movement. In 1983 he signed the "Heilbronn Manifesto" in which writers, artists and scientists called for conscientious objection because of the stationing of the Pershing 2 rockets in the Federal Republic. Grass published the text collection "Resistance Learning - Political Counter-speech 1980-1983". In the 1987 state elections in Schleswig-Holstein, Grass, who was living in Wewelsfleth at the time, publicly supported the SPD's top candidate, Björn Engholm.
Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schröder (r.), and the Nobel Prize for Literature Günter Grass, 2005.Grass resumed the role of political admonisher when reunification in 1990 determined daily politics. He opposed a "jerky unity based on the mere connecting article 23 of the Basic Law" and instead promoted a federalist German cultural nation that was gradually growing together. In 1992, with his story "Unkenrufe" (Unken Calls), Grass continued the efforts to bring about the difficult reconciliation between the Germans and their eastern neighbors. In January 1993, Grass resigned from the SPD in protest against the asylum policy of the Social Democrats. But in the 1998 federal election campaign, he campaigned in the East German cities of Schwerin, Weimar, Jena and Erfurt for the SPD chancellor candidate Gerhard Schröder and a red-green federal policy.
Grass' books:between fiction and autobiography
Grass triggered heated debates with his 1995 novel "A Wide Field", which takes place in the GDR between the building of the Wall and reunification and uses the memories of the main characters to create a panorama of German history between the March Revolution of 1848 and the present. Four years later, Grass presented his already highly acclaimed work "My Century" in Munich, in which he sketched a partly autobiographical, partly fictional picture of the highs and lows of the 20th century and a "particular perspicacity for the stupefying enthusiasm". showed.
In October 1997, Grass caused a stir in politics and the press with his eulogy for the Turkish writer Yasar Kemal, who received the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. Among other things, Grass criticized the German asylum and Turkey policy as well as the deportation practice of the federal government, which he described as "again, this time democratically secured barbarism".
"Im Krebsgang" about the sinking of the "Wilhelm Gustloff"
In 2002, Grass once again took on a turning point in German history with the novella "Im Krebsgang". The book is about the worst shipping disaster of all time:the sinking of the "Strength through Joy" cruise ship "Wilhelm Gustloff" on January 30, 1945 in the Baltic Sea with 10,000 refugees on board. Critics not only appreciated the gripping description, but also the fact that Grass had taken on a subject that German literature had long avoided:the German expulsion from the East.
The Waffen SS Confession
In a newspaper interview on August 12, 2006 - shortly before the publication of his autobiography "Beim Skinning the Onion" - Grass admits for the first time that he was drafted into the Waffen-SS at the age of 17 and started his service as a tank gunner in 1944. However, he was not involved in war crimes. The late admission led to a heated debate in the German and international media. There were voices calling for Grass to return honorary citizenship to his native city of Gdańsk. "Those were exciting days. Since then things have calmed down a bit," said Grass a year later at a reading in Berlin.
"Stupid August" and "Words of Grimm"
Grass later raged against the "annihilation attempt" by "executioners" and "rapid courts". He feels disgusted as soon as he opens the newspaper, he says. According to critics, insulted and insulting in his use of language, he went on the same level as the politicians who grumbled about "rats and bluebottles" in the 1960s and meant writers like Grass at the time. His book "Dummer August", published in March 2007 with poems, lithographs and drawings, deals with the public outrage over his "too long silence".
His next work is again more forgiving:"Grimm's Words. A Declaration of Love" is dedicated to the life story of the Brothers Grimm and tells of their achievements in the German language. At the same time, the book is what the subtitle already says:a declaration of love to the German language, the real home of the author Günther Grass.
A poem causes excitement
In the spring of 2012, Grass unleashed a wave of outrage and incomprehension with a poem. Under the title "What needs to be said" he massively criticizes Israel's policy and German arms deliveries to the country. The majority of commentators and many politicians see Grass's position on the wrong track. The discussion dominated the headlines for weeks. The writer himself feels misunderstood. He speaks of a campaign intended to damage his reputation.
But he still has his opinion. With his statements in November 2014 at a gala of the writers' association PEN on the refugee situation, he caused a nationwide uproar. "I am convinced that the willingness of the population to accept refugees who are looking for refuge here is far greater than is portrayed in the media. And if politicians are afraid to take up this topic, and that also means making demands to get living space, to really implement asylum, not to keep it to words, is much broader in the population, but this demand is not made," said Grass at the time.
Günter Grass died on April 13, 2015 at the age of 87. His volume "Vonne Endlichkait" was published posthumously shortly afterwards.