Wiesenthal Center Calls Upon Günter Grass For Full Disclosure of Nazi Past and Access to Wartime Documents

August 22, 2006

Wiesenthal Center Calls Upon Günter Grass For Full Disclosure of Nazi Past and Access to Wartime Documents

The Simon Wiesenthal Center today called upon German author Günter Grass to make public all the pertinent details regarding his service in the Waffen-SS and grant researchers from the Center access to all documents concerning his World War II past.

In a letter sent from Jerusalem by the Center’s chief Nazi-hunter, Israel director Dr. Efraim Zuroff, to the Nobel Prize winning author, Zuroff asked Grass to clarify contradicting details which have appeared in the media following his revelation earlier this month that he had served in the Waffen-SS during the last year of World War II. He also requested that Grass allow Wiesenthal Center researchers to examine his personal documents in various German archives to which access is not granted without the subject’s permission.

According to Zuroff:

“Given Grass’ moral stature in Germany and throughout the world as a symbol of those calling for an honest confrontation with his country’s Nazi past, it is imperative that he tell the whole truth about his service in the Waffen-SS and allow access to his wartime documents. To do otherwise, would be precisely the kind of dishonest behavior which Grass himself has criticized for decades.”

For more information call 00-972-50-7214156

www.wiesenthal.com