Submitted by DLR, Jun 28, 2007 10:44

It is important to remember that the vast majority of the members of the Waffen-SS were neither volunteers nor members of Nazi Party. This included Hitler's bodyguard division (1st SS Panzer Division). As early as 1942 entire units of Air Force ground crews were being transferred into the Waffen-SS to make good losses suffered on the Eastern Front. Additionally all foreign units fighting alongside the Germans (usually in German Army uniforms) were transferred to the Waffen-SS. (This included the father of the formers Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff General John Shalikashvili. His father served as an officer in the Waffen-SS and was captured by the British during the fighting at Normandy.)

The problem for Mr. Grass is not his membership in the Waffen-SS. Although it was judged a criminal organization (and rightly so) at Nuremberg, one can make the case that individual members served without committing any war crimes, as seems to be the case with both Grass and Shalikashvili's father. However, since the end of WWII the SS has been used as the "alibi" by the Germans for all the crimes that were committed during the war, both at the front and behind the lines. That blanket was so thick and so pervasive that Grass dare not reveal that he was one of its threads for fear his entire post war life would unravel. Grass is not, perhaps, the most courageous soul either physically or morally. One has to wonder if early on, say in the 50's after publication of The Tin Drum, he had simply said "I was drafted into the Waffen-SS and served without distinction." would he still have been considered for the Nobel Prize?

There is also a larger question here -- Many would place the entire blame for the crimes committed during World War Two at the feet of Hitler, or Hitler and his lieutenants, or the Nazis or the SS. Such a narrowing of the focus of guilt has satisfied most people and yet it seems too simple, to easy. When historians come to write of America's involvement in Iraq, Gitmo, Abu Ghriab, and the "War on Terror" will they lay the blame at the feet of Bush, or Bush & Chaney, or the NeoCons or the US Army?

Crimes of this sort, like those of the Nazis, take more than a few fanatics, true believers, or loyal soldiers to carry out. It also needs the willing support of the people. We the people are responsible for the crimes committed by our government and our army. It is after all our army and they are doing our bidding just at the German Army did the bidding of the German people.

Günter Grass was afraid to stand up and admit he had been a member of the Waffen-SS. Are we any less afraid to stand up?

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