Guenter Grass' poem, recently published, sparked controversy, tumult, outrage.

What must be said
*
Why have I been silent, silent for so long?,
Our generals have gamed it out,
Confident the west will survive.
We people have not even been considered.
What is this right to “preventive war”?
A war that could erase the Iranian people.
Dominated by it’s neighbor, pulsing with righteousness
Smug in the fact that it is they, not Iran,
Who have the Bomb.

Why have I so far avoided to identify Israel by it’s name?,
Israel and it’s ever increasing nuclear arsenal,
Beyond reproach, Uncontrolled, uninspected.

We all know these things
Yet we all remain silent, fearful of being labeled:
anti-Semitic
hateful
worse

Considering Germany’s past these labels stick
So we call it “business”, “reparation” take your pick,
As we deliver yet another submarine.
As we provide to Israel the means to deliver annihilation.
I say what must be said.

Why did I stay silent until now?
Because I’m German, of course.
I’m tainted by a stain I cannot wash out
I’m silent because I want so badly to make it right
To put my sins in the past and leave them silently there.

Why did I wait to say it until now?
And write these words with the last of my ink?
Declaring that Israel threatens world peace?
Because it is true and it must be said,
Tomorrow will be too late.

We Germans now carry a new burden of sin on our shoulders
Through the weapons we have sold
We are helping to carry out this foreseeable tragedy
No excuse will remove our stain of complicity.

It must be said. I won’t be silent
I’ve had enough of the hypocrisy;
Please shed the silence with me,
The consequences are all too predictable.
It’s time to demand free and permanent control
of BOTH Israel’s nuclear arsenal
AND Iran’s nuclear facilities
enforced with international supervision.

It’s the only way, in a land convulsed with insanity,
Israelis, Palestinians, everybody, will survive.
And we too, will survive.

What must be said

Why have I kept silent, held back so long,
on something openly practised in
war games, at the end of which those of us
who survive will at best be footnotes?


It's the alleged right to a first strike
that could destroy an Iranian people
subjugated by a loudmouth
and gathered in organized rallies,
because an atom bomb may be being
developed within his arc of power.

Yet why do I hesitate to name
that other land in which
for years – although kept secret –
a growing nuclear power has existed
beyond supervision or verification,
subject to no inspection of any kind?

This general silence on the facts,
before which my own silence has bowed,
seems to me a troubling, enforced lie,
leading to a likely punishment

the moment it's broken:
the verdict "Anti-semitism" falls easily.
But now that my own country,

brought in time after time
for questioning about its own crimes,
profound and beyond compare,
has delivered yet another submarine to Israel,

(in what is purely a business transaction,
though glibly declared an act of reparation)
whose speciality consists in its ability
to direct nuclear warheads toward
an area in which not a single atom bomb
has yet been proved to exist, its feared
existence proof enough, I'll say what must be said.

But why have I kept silent till now?
Because I thought my own origins,
tarnished by a stain that can never be removed,
meant I could not expect Israel, a land
to which I am, and always will be, attached,
to accept this open declaration of the truth.

Why only now, grown old,
and with what ink remains, do I say:
Israel's atomic power endangers
an already fragile world peace?

Because what must be said
may be too late tomorrow;
and because – burdened enough as Germans –
we may be providing material for a crime
that is foreseeable, so that our complicity
will not be expunged by any
of the usual excuses.

And granted: I've broken my silence
because I'm sick of the West's hypocrisy;
and I hope too that many may be freed
from their silence, may demand
that those responsible for the open danger
we face renounce the use of force,

may insist that the governments of
both Iran and Israel allow an international authority
free and open inspection of
the nuclear potential and capability of both.

No other course offers help
to Israelis and Palestinians alike,
to all those living side by side in enmity
in this region occupied by illusions,
and ultimately, to all of us.

Günter Grass

Translated by Breon Mitchell. You can read the poem in the original German here.

• This poem was amended on 10 and 11 April 2012 after it was revised by the translator. This was further amended on 13 April 2012 to include a link to the original poem in German.

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Or rent a nice French bomb to poof them out of existence while leaving their real estate just where we need it to use again for temples in which to praise our god... Cuz' he can really go Hawaiian. - Frank Zappa

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On some nights I still believe that a car with the fuel gauge on empty can run about fifty more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio. - HST

1983 300SD - 305000
1984 Toyota Landcruiser - 190000
1994 GMC Jimmy - 203000

https://media.giphy.com/media/X3nnss8PAj5aU/giphy.gif

What



"The longer one ponders the curious fact that Grass doesn’t think it worthwhile to wonder if Iran’s theocrats might be as eager as the Nazis were to make good on their threats against the Jews the clearer it becomes: his claim that he feels connected to Israel couldn’t be more hollow – he knows nothing about Israel, and he has no idea what “never again” means for the people that his former comrades worked so hard to wipe out. His most urgent need is to think of Israel’s Jews as dangerous: potential perpetrators of a Nazi-like crime.

As a young man at the end of the war, Grass was clever enough to get rid of his SS uniform before he could be captured, but it seems he never quite got rid of what he learned about the Jews while he wore the uniform: 'Die Juden sind unser Unglück.' "

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62 220sb
67 250S
72 280SE 4.5
74 280C
77 300D
82 240D
85 190E 2.3
86 300E RIP 12/28/09
85 300SD
92 300D 2.5
00 E320 Current
Over 1,000,000 miles in Benzes, Since66

....and a whole passel of BMW 2002 and Tii

Gaza is the new Warschau Ghetto, Israeli soldiers are the new Nazis, and the Palestinians are the new Jews

What

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On some nights I still believe that a car with the fuel gauge on empty can run about fifty more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio. - HST

1983 300SD - 305000
1984 Toyota Landcruiser - 190000
1994 GMC Jimmy - 203000

https://media.giphy.com/media/X3nnss8PAj5aU/giphy.gif

What a croc.

- Peter.

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2021 Chevrolet Spark
Formerly...
2000 GMC Sonoma
1981 240D 4spd stick. 347000 miles. Deceased Feb 14 2021
2002 Kia Rio. Worst crap on four wheels
1981 240D 4spd stick. 389000 miles.
1984 123 200
1979 116 280S
1972 Cadillac Sedan DeVille
1971 108 280S

So, what has been the reaction by all the German companies to this poem?

Have they stopped selling to Israel whatever evil stuff they were selling?

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Strelnik
Invest in America: Buy a Congressman!

1950 170SD
1951 Citroen 11BN
1953 Citroen 11BNF limo
1953 220a project
1959 180D
1960 190D
1960 Borgward Isabella TS 2dr
1983 240D daily driver
1983 380SL
1990 350SDL daily driver alt
3 x Citroen DS21M, down from 5
3 x Citroen 2CV, down from 6

I'm quite sure they're not remotely concerned about it. They are not about to dump their profits on the backs of politically correct idiocy.

- Peter.

__________________
2021 Chevrolet Spark
Formerly...
2000 GMC Sonoma
1981 240D 4spd stick. 347000 miles. Deceased Feb 14 2021
2002 Kia Rio. Worst crap on four wheels
1981 240D 4spd stick. 389000 miles.
1984 123 200
1979 116 280S
1972 Cadillac Sedan DeVille
1971 108 280S

Well done.

__________________
62 220sb
67 250S
72 280SE 4.5
74 280C
77 300D
82 240D
85 190E 2.3
86 300E RIP 12/28/09
85 300SD
92 300D 2.5
00 E320 Current
Over 1,000,000 miles in Benzes, Since66

....and a whole passel of BMW 2002 and Tii

Sorry, but to me, Gunther Grass is just another hypocrite.

There were some true stand-up Germans and they paid for it in the short run.

Carl Borgward got his factories shut down and he was chased out of Germany for opposing Hitler. he settled in Switzerland and came back to germany after WW II. He started all over and the company died in the 1960s when he had no heirs who wanted to continue it, so the other German car companies made short work of it.

__________________
Strelnik
Invest in America: Buy a Congressman!

1950 170SD
1951 Citroen 11BN
1953 Citroen 11BNF limo
1953 220a project
1959 180D
1960 190D
1960 Borgward Isabella TS 2dr
1983 240D daily driver
1983 380SL
1990 350SDL daily driver alt
3 x Citroen DS21M, down from 5
3 x Citroen 2CV, down from 6

I don't know if I would call Grass "just another Hypocrate". Certainly, he is a complex personality. I am not too partial about his works, but have to grant him literary uniqueness.

A big question is, will Germans ever be allowed to reconcile with themselves?

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Drafted into an SS division at age 17 (yep, the SS conscripted late in the war), and he was listed as SS in his POW record. I wouldn't hold it too much against him.

You feel the same way about Joseph Ratzinger that was in in the Hitler Youth and who is now the Catholic Pope?

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1991 560 SEC AMG, 199k <---- 300 hp 10:1 ECE euro HV ...

1995 E 420, 170k "The Red Plum" (sold)

2015 BMW 535i xdrive awd Stage 1 DINAN, 6k, <----364 hp

1967 Mercury Cougar, 49k

2013 Jaguar XF, 20k <----340 hp Supercharged, All Wheel Drive (sold)

Hitlerjugend was more of a voluntary organization. Grass's situation may have well been: "go to the front or be shot for desertion!" The Nazis didn't f**k around, plus no one wanted a Russian takeover, regardless of their politics. He was inducted into a combat unit, not turned into a concentration camp guard.

A 17-year old conscript was more a victim of the Nazi machine than a criminal.

Probably not. The magnitude of the crime was too large and the bacillus of political correctness in modern life makes it impossible to confront reality.

- Peter.

__________________
2021 Chevrolet Spark
Formerly...
2000 GMC Sonoma
1981 240D 4spd stick. 347000 miles. Deceased Feb 14 2021
2002 Kia Rio. Worst crap on four wheels
1981 240D 4spd stick. 389000 miles.
1984 123 200
1979 116 280S
1972 Cadillac Sedan DeVille
1971 108 280S

I strongly resent this notion. I can testify that younger members of the post WWII generation are far more detached from this inheritance.
What reality are you referring to?
I am also convinced, we have a circumstantial element here, which may very well fit into your thread http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/open-discussion/315434-whats-wrong-america-west-today.html It goes hand in hand.
What is remarkable, Germans are commonly burdened with the responsibility of 'The Holocaust', while Israel seems to benefit from the trademark.
Ideologically speaking, who has the claim on the trademark? Maybe Germany has "traded the mark". Very fitting.
They have become Masters of Diplomacy. 40 years of divide made it a necessity to engage with East AND West.

Grass is no fool. He has influence on a whole generation of post WWII intellect.

The West and primarily America prefers to shift whatever is wrong with itself onto other entities. Third World countries, Socialists, Communists, Islamofacists, etc.
A strategy that has worked so far, but most likely won't work forever.

Btw, I read the original German version, which is intrinsic to the literary value of Grass' expression. The translation is a translation at best.

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