Günter Grass reached adolescence during the last two months of World War II when all hopes of a successful resistance to Hitler had been lost. Grass was drafted into the Nazi Waffen SS tank division when he was only seventeen. At that time, anyone who still had all their limbs were being sent by the Third Reich to the rapidly retreating front. Although it has been sixty years since the war ended, but Germans who belonged to Heinrich Himmler's personal army as a member of the Nazi Waffen-SS still have a tough time. In his autobiography Peeling Onion, Grass himself admits that his tarnished past has left a stain on his origins that he cannot remove, and he apologizes for it. Till today, many still wonder to what extent Günter Grass can be held responsible for the atrocities he had to commit as a member of the Nazi Waffen SS while he was still a young, adolescent boy. This paper will be exploring Grass’s adolescent motivations to join the Nazis and analyzing he can be held responsible for his actions of that time.
Günter Wilhelm Grass was born to ethnic German parents who shared Protestant and Roman Catholic beliefs. Grass was raised a Catholic. Grass has admitted that as a teenager, he felt confined in his parent’s small house and that was the reason he volunteered to join the German Navy Kriegsmarine’s submarine unit, two years before he was drafted into the Waffen SS. Grass has fiercely criticized and has shown contempt toward his younger, adolescent self. Grass has described himself as egotistical, self-centered, and selfish during his adolescent days. As an adolescent, all Grass wanted to do was “free” himself from his family background. He has admitted that he was blind to the love and sacrifices that others made on his behalf, and has also admitted being blind to the feelings and needs of his parents and sister. He never really acknowledged or recognized their efforts to help him. It can be concluded that it was his adolescent desire to escape his family and his confined life initially led him to join the Nazi.
As an adolescent, Grass did not disapprove of the Nazis, in fact, he actually admired the Nazis. During his adolescent days, Grass had even written a poem for Hitler’s 50th birthday. Grass hated his father, and like other Germans, he was blinded by Hitler’s illusion, “the fantasy that one is special and superior to everyone else” (Cloonan). This is why Grass idealized him and joined the Nazi. In his autobiography, Günter Grass makes an attempt to explain that it was his adolescence that drew him to Nazi propaganda, leading him to join the Nazi Waffen SS, and he did not question the role played by the SS in the Holocaust and his participation in it, until after his military service ended. Till today, Grass himself is puzzled and wonders how he never questioned the things that were happening in front of him. Perhaps his adolescent mind was too young to comprehend the atrocities that were happening before his very eyes. His mother’s cousin, his own uncle was executed by the Germans, his own young classmate and a fellow member of the Waffen SS disappeared before his eyes, but he never questioned anything. In his autobiography, Gunter has called himself a “Dumb young Nazi.”
Grass also notes that people from all over Europe were volunteering for the Waffen SS, which seems to suggest that he was just an adolescent, perhaps following in the footsteps of others, fueled by his desire to flee his parents. Grass even admits that his decision to join the army was also a part of sexual maturation, which also seems believable since he describes his adolescent life as ‘confined.’ It is evident that Grass’s adolescence and the living he was living during his adolescent days, as well as his adolescent admiration for the Nazis had a pivotal role in leading the teenage boy to join a Nazi military unit that played a key role in the death of millions of people. Grass himself has express guilt for being such a naïve young adolescent and considering the fact he truly was a young teenager at the time when the Waffen SS played a role in the Holocaust. As a young adolescent soldier, Günter Grass’s mind had not fully matured and would not have been able to exercise adult impulse control. Therefore, to “hold [him] accountable for the immaturity of [his] neural anatomy and psychological development” (Schaffer, 2004) would not be justifiable, and an immature, adolescent Grass could not be considered responsible for the atrocities he committed.
References
Santrock, J. W. (2005). Adolescence. (10 ed.). Dallas: University of Texas.
Cloonan, W. (1979). The flounder gunther grass.
Schaffer, A. (2004, Oct 15). Roper v. simmons asks how adolescent and adult brains differ.
