In the spotlight: Günter Grass

In Poland, Lech Wałęsa called on Grass to relinquish his honorary citizenship of Gdańsk (of which Grass is a native) and PiS' Jacek Kurski claimed that someone who had served in the Waffen-SS has no right to be a citizen of the city where the first blood of the war was shed.

In Germany reactions were also very emotional, but they didn't focus on Grass' membership of the infamous fighting force, since a great many young Germans were called up to different military formations in the last months of the Third Reich. Instead, they wondered why he had kept it a secret for 60 years. During that time Grass became a moral authority, an outspoken left-leaning critic of Germany's Nazi past. He was also very active in reconciling Polish-German relations.

Grass volunteered at 15 for the U-Boot fleet, but was conscripted into anti-aircraft auxiliary personnel. Then in late 1944, when he was 17, he was called up to the Waffen-SS, where he served in the 10th Panzer Division Frundsberg. He trained as a tank gunner and saw combat between February and April 1945. He was eventually taken prisoner by US troops. The Waffen-SS was originally not part of the army, but a combat arm of the Nazi SS. It was known for its brutality and ruthlessness and for committing war crimes in Nazi-occupied territories. However, by the end of the war serving in the Waffen-SS was unrelated to membership of the SS proper.