THE ONION, THE BOX, THE DICCIONARY. GÜNTER GRASS BETWEEN AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND SCANDAL

Abstract

This article presents an approach to Günter Grass’ biography based on the so-called "memory trilogy" consisting of the books Beim Häuten der Zwiebel (Peeling the Onion, 2006), Die Box. Dunkelkammergeschichten (The Box. Tales from the Darkroom, 2008) and Grimms Wörter. Eine Liebeserklärung (Grimms‘ Words. A Declaration of Love, 2010). On the one hand, Grass’s arguments for the need to write about one’s own life are presented together with the means which he used in order to do it, the metaphorical catalysts of memory: the onion, amber and literature. On the other hand, the words of the famous literary critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki, a Polish Jew by origin, about the controversial poem Was gesagt werden muss (What must be said, 2012) inspire the following attempt to work out and put in objective terms the biggest scandal in which Grass was involved ever, that is, the one that arised out of the publishing of Peeeling the Onion as the past of the Nobel laureate as a member of the Waffen-SS became public. This affair is specially studied in the article, as well as Günter Grass’s references to it until his passing in 2015.