TWO STATES--ONE NATION? by Gunter Grass,...

TWO STATES--ONE NATION? by Gunter Grass, translated by Krishna Winston with A. S. Wensinger (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich: $8.95). Gunter Grass, the most prominent postwar German writer, states his opposition to the idea of a reunited Germany (“a Colossus loaded with complexes”) in this collection of essays and speeches. He argues that Europe has good reason to fear and distrust a powerful Germany: In the decades following Bismarck’s unification of the fragmented remains of the Holy Roman Empire, Germany wreaked unparalleled destruction on the world, culminating in the Holocaust. Although Grass feels the fears and distrust of the neighboring countries are justified, he worries that those fears could produce a recurrence of the dangerous cycle of national self-pity and paranoia that facilitated Hitler’s rise to power. A former member of the Hitler Youth, Grass remains haunted by piles of shoes and glasses and hair he was shown at Auschwitz at the end of the war. He feels that the moral culpability for such unprecedented barbarity must be considered in any discussion of the “German Question,” concluding, “Nothing, no sense of nationhood, however idyllically colored, and no assurance of late-born benevolence can modify or dispel the experience that we the criminals, with our victims, had as a unified Germany. We cannot get around Auschwitz. And no matter how greatly we want to, we should not attempt to get around it, because Auschwtiz belongs to us, is a permanent stigma of our history--and a positive gain! It has made possible this insight: Finally we know ourselves.” A challenging and disturbing book.