Nobel prize-winning author Guenter Grass, who admitted that he served in the Nazis Waffen SS as a teenager.

Some argue that, as a prominent moral voice who urged Germany to face up to the Nazi past, the 78-year-old's moral authority has been undermined by his silence about his months in the Nazi paramilitary combat force.

Joachim Fest, a biographer of Hitler and a chronicler of the Nazi period, said Grass' silence was "totally inexplicable."

"He is seriously damaged," he said. "To use a common saying, I wouldn't buy a used car from this person."

But some writers expressed their support -- stressing Grass' short service in the SS and his admission he was swayed by the Nazis' sophisticated methods of indoctrinating young people.

The SS was declared a criminal organization by the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal after the war.

The Japan Times Weekly: Aug. 19, 2006
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