Günter Grass

perhaps one of Germanys greatest living authors, has recently admitted that in the closing stages of the second world war [at the age of seventeen] he had been recruited into the Waffen SS. One would imagine that in a country so traumatised by its recent history such an admission, especially coming from such a high profile figure and one who is so vehemently anti nazi, would be seen as an act of bravery but no, he has been roundly and venomously attacked by politicians, by his contemporaries, by just about everyone. I find it to be further more disgusting proof of Germanys [almost] complete inability to move on from the past, a past they cling to in such a manner that it causes them to persecute anyone who questions them in this regard and to villainies individuals such as Günter Grass who like most of the country of the time were caught up in it. The fact of the matter is that the man cannot change his past only his future and his present, should he have previously been so reticent about his war time activities, no of course not but had he come out earlier he would simply have been crucified earlier.