As you may know, German novelist and Nobel Prize winner Gunter Grass has come out of the closet —“ admitting to having served in the German Nazi Waffen SS during World War II.
Needless to say, many perspectives have been aired on what Mr. Grass’ admission means.
Mr. Grass has certainly been a loud voice calling for honesty and moral courage in post war German reconstruction. He has used his works and his awards as a bully pulpit to those ends. He most certainly has thrown rocks while living in an opaque house.
My observations are as follows:
First, I am glad he finally decided to be honest. Moments of honesty like this cause us all to reflect on our personal ethics, our personal hypocrisy. No matter how painful, a moral person will develop the courage to speak and make amends.
Second, honesty calls for forgiveness. Some have cited the fact that Mr. Grass has a new book coming out. They draw a line between that fact and Mr. Grass’ admission. Maybe it’s just publicity they say. There are plenty of things you can do to publicize a book, but admitting you were a Nazi, and a member of the SS to boot, is not among them. As the Waffen SS wiki states:
Regardless of the record of individual combat units within the Waffen-SS, the entire organisation was declared a criminal organization by the International Military Tribunal during the Nuremberg Trials…
I opt for a valid cleansing of the soul. Guilt does amazing things. It can lead to an amendment of life and reconciliation. It can also cause us to lash out forcefully against those that mirror our own misdeeds.
Third, there is only one moral authority, God. Our ability to exhibit the goodness of God is part of who we are. We are made in His image and likeness. Grass has done this through the art of words. His contribution is that his words had an affect on a people, his personal sins having little if anything to do with that effort, other than galvanizing his focus. Grass reflected the best of what we can be when we work in unison with God’s desire for us to do right in the midst of our sinfulness.
As Adam Hanft points out in his article: Gunter Grass and the Treacherous Limits of Moral Authority
Much of the commentary flood [on Grass’s admission], including these two pieces [in the New York Times], made reference to the exalted moral realm which had Grass occupied.
He was the voice of “moral authority” according to the International Herald Tribune; the “conscience of Germany” according to the Guardian (while the Wall Street Journal coolly qualified the title, calling him the “self-appointed conscience.” The Times of London wheeled out “moral arbiter” in their piece.
Therein lies the problem. I’m not convinced it’s healthy, in the long-term, for a society to pin the label of moral Zeus on anyone. Perhaps that galvanizing and oxygenating force is necessary in the short-term, when the culture has been through a wrenching trauma and an institutionalized order doesn’t exist yet. Post-war Germany was an example of this existential void, and so was post-apartheid South Africa. Grass and Mandela rose to those moments, but by doing so they were created an ethical aristocracy that was beyond criticism.
Truly healthy societies don’t draw their moral authority from a single individual, or even a few of them.
Following that statement Hanft goes off on a tangent, trying desperately to figure out where the moral authority that governs society comes from —“ and as with some intellectuals he pins it on the ‘magical’ inner working of that society.
Evolved societies and cultures are able to situate and draw their moral conclusions from within. At its best, America has had that internal locus of rightness, which is in many ways a direct descendant of our founding meritocracy. The promise of a jury of our peers would be meaningless without it. When America goes wrong it’s because our ethical GPS goes haywire.
Of course his qualifier —evolved societies— is completely subjective. I think Nazi Germany saw itself as an evolved society and as a superior culture. However, what it drew from within, with few exceptions, was death and destruction.
What Mr. Hanft fails to recognize is that there is an arbiter of morality that is clear and objective, with very well stated positions that reach beyond our present to our eventuality. That authority is God and His Church.
To my original question, did we hardly know Gunter Grass? I think we knew him well; after all he is human, weak, and sinful just like the rest of us. For Mr. Grass and the rest of us it is really simple: God has shown us the way, honesty is best, repentance and forgiveness are to be practiced by all.