Günter Grass was in the Waffen-SS

Belgian author Jacques De Decker sees in Günter Grass's revelations the culmination of the German writer's literary project. "Grass's whole work, or nearly, is an X-ray image of Germany's (bad) conscience viewed through the convulsions of the last century. He has not approached these tragedies and traumas as a thinker or theorist, but as a poet and an occasionally visionary graphic artist ... Is Grass a provocateur? He has never ceased to be in his writings, etchings, and public statements. This latest declaration, which comes as the prelude to the first book where he reveals himself as is (hitherto he had only ever talked of himself under the cover of fables and metaphor), is a new way of pursuing his project: through the desire that his descendants should understand."

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