Günter Grass: Writing Against the Wall

“I realized it was through language, that I could define myself as a German.“ Meet Nobel Prize laureate Günter Grass in this interview where he reflects on his life, literary work and political engagement. At the end of World War II, Günter Grass’ world also collapsed. Born in 1927, he grew up in the Third Reich, enrolling in the army towards the end of the war - as he describes in his autobiography “Peeling the onion“ (2006) - in the SS elite. “Our youth was marked by National Socialism with all its mistakes and madness and blindness“ Grass states in this profound interview, where he looks back on his life. With Germany shattered and his hometown Gdansk occupied, Grass - to the frustration of his father - turned to art and literature. Very soon he realized, that the deroute of his early years influenced his writing. “So I wasn’t able to voluntarily choose the content of my work, it was already dictated. And justifiably so. You are forced to a