Natalie Solent

Politics, news, libertarianism, Science Fiction, religion, sewing. You got a problem, bud? I like sewing.

E-mail: nataliesolent-at-aol-dot-com (I assume it's OK to quote senders by name.)

Back to main blog

RSS thingy


Jane's Blogosphere: blogtrack for Natalie Solent.



Links

( 'Nother Solent is this blog's good twin. Same words, searchable archives, RSS feed. Provided by a benefactor, to whom thanks.
I also sometimes write for Samizdata and Biased BBC.)

The Old Comrades:

Archives


November 2001 December 2001 January 2002 February 2002 March 2002 April 2002 May 2002 June 2002 July 2002 August 2002 September 2002 October 2002 November 2002 December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 December 2003 January 2004 February 2004 March 2004 April 2004 May 2004 June 2004 July 2004 August 2004 September 2004 October 2004 November 2004 December 2004 January 2005 February 2005 March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 August 2007 October 2007 February 2008 April 2008 May 2008 June 2008 July 2008 September 2008 October 2008 November 2008 December 2008 January 2009 March 2009 May 2009 June 2009 July 2009 August 2009 October 2009 January 2010 March 2010 May 2010 June 2010 July 2010 August 2010 September 2010 October 2010 November 2010 December 2010 January 2011 February 2011 April 2011 June 2011 August 2011 September 2011 October 2011 November 2011 January 2012 February 2012 March 2012 April 2012 May 2012 June 2012 July 2012 August 2012 September 2012 October 2012 November 2012 December 2012 January 2013 February 2013 March 2013 April 2013 May 2013 June 2013 July 2013 August 2013 September 2013 October 2013 November 2013

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?

Saturday, August 12, 2006
 
You mean that was sex? The scoundrel said it was Pilates!

Tim Blair asks,

Let’s see how the “Pope was a Nazi!” crowd copes with this:

Germany was rocked by the revelations last night that Günter Grass, its greatest living author and doyen of the Left, was a member of Hitler’s elite Waffen-SS.

The Nobel laureate, who has been the country’s moral guide for decades, admitted in an interview published today that he became a member of the infamous Nazi corps at the age of 17.

Tim Blair links back to a previous post of his quoting the many expressions of outrage at the elevation to the papacy of a man who was drafted into the Hitler Youth at the age of 14. Something I never understood about that reaction was that all the same people fall over themselves in their anxiousness not to "stigmatize" 14 year-old "troubled youths" of our own day who are "forced into" to a life of crime. The youths, of course, are forced into crime by truly irresistible forces like inequality and racism rather than anything so feeble as the Nazi State.

Liberal blogger Majikthise, linked to by Tim Blair, asks how this was kept under wraps for so long. Compare it to the way that T.S. Eliot's flirtation with fascism or Ezra Pound's actual fascism have been discussed for decades. I'm afraid that the answer to this is probably that Grass is left-wing, not right. He's in the same Famous Writers Speak Out bracket as Pinter or Chomsky. (This article name-drops nearly every name in the category, although it spoils the effect by dropping Nadine Gordimer's name wrong.) Günter Grass flays Bush. He is "a living legend. When this Nobel laureate speaks, people listen." Can't have living legends showing up in those sinister, disturbingly well-cut black uniforms. I reckon it's been discovered several times and hastily undiscovered an equal number of times.

But to be fair to the old Bush-flayer, he was only 17, and it was Nazi Germany. As the Telegraph article Tim links to points out,

Its members initially volunteered, but after 1944, as Germany's military strength was weakening, members were drafted at random from the male population. Grass, who had volunteered for the submarine forces at the age of 15 to "get away from the family" but had been rejected, was recruited into the SS in the winter of 1944-45.
I've said, and meant, that we shouldn't be too harsh on Grass for doing no better than millions of other propaganda-sodden German youths, and a great deal less badly than some. However I do think that someone so disenamoured of his family that joining Hitler's navy seemed preferable to their continued proximity ought to show a little more humility when diagnosing others as having "hereditary compulsions".

The next paragraph is unintentionally funny. One of God's own innocents, our Günter:

Asked when he had first realised that he was in the SS, Grass replied: "I'm not sure how it was. Did the draft order give it away, or on the letterhead? The rank of the signatory? Or did I first notice it when I arrived in Dresden?"

posted by Natalie at 9:50 AM

HOME