Draft wasn’t a matter of choice for Grass

Re “A Legend of Words Is Toppled by His Own,” Aug. 24

The reason Gunter Grass kept his military service in World War II quiet is to avoid exactly the reaction in The Times’ story. Grass was a 17-year-old kid in 1944 and was drafted into the Waffen SS of the German army. Anyone who has served in the military should have some idea about how little is communicated to an entry-level private in the army. Grass did what mostly all of us draftees in the world did at that time (or any other time) regardless of nationality -- we went into the military and served our countries, period.

TOM REINBERGER

Glendora

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I am bewildered by the brouhaha over the discovery that Grass was drafted into the Waffen SS as a 17-year-old toward the end of World War II. So was I -- a female teenager who got drafted into the German air force about the same time, similar age. Let me assure you, neither of us had any choice in that matter. Does that make us war criminals?

Grass wanted to be a submariner. Given a choice, I would have far preferred to hit the boards as an entertainer with the equivalent of the German USO. But neither of us had a choice. So give the guy a break!

I got a break in the final confusion at the end of the war and lived to become a war bride, raised two great children, and I watch today’s political scene in this country with a sense of deja vu.

I am sure neither of us knew of the horrors committed by our regime of those days, for this was carefully covered up until the truth spewed out after the war, horrifying decent Germans as much as the rest of the world. I can only hope that U.S. citizens recognize some of the parallels between the government controls put on their lives today compared to those imposed on German citizens half a century ago.

RUTH WEDDLE

West Hills