Günter Grass(1927-2015)

He grew up as the son of a merchant family. At the age of 15 he reported for military service in the Second World War. In 1944 he became a member of the Waffen-SS and was stationed in the 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg. After the end of the war he was taken prisoner by the Americans until 1946. Grass then began an apprenticeship as a stonemason. In 1948 he began studying graphics and sculpture at the art academy in Düsseldorf. After completing his studies, he became a visual arts student with the sculptor Karl Hartung in Berlin in 1953. The first exhibitions of his sculptures and graphics followed. In 1954 he married Anna Schwarz. Grass first became active as a writer in 1957. Now he mainly wrote short prose, poems and plays that were poetic and absurd in character. In 1958, Grass received the "Group 47" sponsorship award for his manuscript "The Tin Drum."

Further novels such as "Cat and Mouse" and "Dog Years" were published. His excessive and provocative expression was always evident here, which earned him the reputation of a political moralist. The book "Letters across the border" was published in 1968. Here Grass commented on the topic of the Prague Spring. Further works such as "The Plebeians rehearse the uprising", "Before" and "locally anesthetized" were created. In the course of the student movement, his participation in public protests against the emergency laws increased. In 1972 the story "From the Diary of a Snail" was published. In it, Grass described the 1969 federal election campaign. The epic novel "The Butt" was published in 1977. In 1978 he divorced his wife Anna. In 1979 he married Ute Grunert for the second time. The film adaptation of "The Tin Drum" was also released in 1979 and was directed by Volker Schlöndorff. Mario Adorf, Katharina Thalbach, Otto Sander and Charles Aznavour, among others, played in the film adaptation. In 1980, "The Tin Drum" was awarded an Oscar for "Best Foreign Language Film," making it the first German film to receive this award.

From 1982 to 1993 Grass was a member of the SPD. Through his political activities, his literary work became increasingly popular with the public. In 1983, Grass and other writers, artists and scientists signed the "Heilbronn Manifesto", which called for people to refuse military service because of the stationing of the Pershing-2 rockets. Three years later, in 1986, the book "Die Rattin" was published, which was also made into a film a few years later. In 1987, Grass re-entered political life and took part in the SPD campaign for the state elections in Schleswig-Holstein. The Academy of Arts refused to hold a solidarity event for Salman Rushdie in 1989. Grass resigned from the association for this reason. Grass took the time of German reunification as an opportunity to speak out against "sudden unity based on mere annex Article 23 of the Basic Law". Grass campaigned for a cultural nation growing together. His novel "Prophecies of Doom," published in 1992, also described reconciliation between East and West. A year later, Grass resigned from the SPD because of the change in asylum law supported by social democratic votes. In other novels, such as "A Wide Field" (1995), he repeatedly brought up the problem of German history between the building of the wall and reunification.

In 1997, Grass, together with the SPD, Alliance 90/GREENS and the PDS, called on Helmut Kohl's government to resign. This year, with Egon Bahr, he also founded the "Willy Brandt Circle" for people "who have retained their independence of thought" (quote from Bahr). When the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Turk Yasar Kemal, Grass criticized Kurdish policy. He once again turned against the change in asylum law in the Federal Republic. In 1998, Grass began campaigning for the SPD in the new federal states. In the work "My Century", which he completed in 1999, Grass tells a separate story for each year of this century. On December 10, 1999, Grass was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for his life's work. For his services to German-Polish understanding, Grass was awarded the "Gloria Artis" medal in September 2001.

Grass received the Danish Hans Christian Andersen Prize in April 2005. In the same month he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Free University of Berlin. In the run-up to the early federal elections in September 2005, Grass drew attention to himself through his public support of the SPD ruling party, for which he was also able to win over other fellow writers. In the same year, 2005, he founded the authors' circle "Lübeck Literaturtreffen". In 2006, Grass was awarded the "Brücke Prize". In August of the same year he vacated his membership for the first time ft in the Waffen-SS. In previous information he was an anti-aircraft assistant for the Wehrmacht between 1944 and 1945. Günther Grass' clarification was accompanied by great media interest. With the documentary "The Uncomfortable" snapshots of the controversial Nobel Prize winner were released in German cinemas in April 2007.

Günter Grass died on April 13, 2015 in Lübeck.