Book about a writer’s Nazi past causes an outcry
Guenter Grass’s book, Peeling the Onion, is no doubt the author’s attempt to get rid of some haunting ghosts from his past, and yet many critics are accusing him of profiting off his Nazi experiences, demanding that he donate all his profits to “some charity that helps victims of the Nazis.”
Critics in Germany called Thursday on Nobel Literature laureate Guenter Grass to donate royalties from his book about his Nazi past to some charity that helps victims of the Nazis.
The German author has caused a storm with the disclosure in the self-loathing book that he spent six months with the Waffen SS, the Nazi party’s private army. The first print run of the book, Peeling the Onion, had almost sold out Thursday in just two days on sale.
Like most cases like this, the very outcry against the book is attributed to its success. It seems rather far-fetched to demand what he does with the profits. The book also claims that the author met Joseph Ratzinger (aka Pope Benedict XVI) while in one of the internment camps.
‘As I was writing my book, a German was elected pope. I had heard of Cardinal Ratzinger … and I read he had been in Bad Aibling.
‘And I thought, I know this Joseph, this personality, this shyness, this stubbornness, this soft-spokenness,’ he told dpa.
The Vatican hasn’t really commented on whether or not this is true. The logic he uses to make the connection is pretty iffy.
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