“Nobel prize-winning author Günter Grass’s surprise admission that he served in the Waffen SS as a teenager has been met with sympathy from some German writers but drew harsh criticism from other prominent figures who asked why he had waited so long to own up. Some argued that, as a prominent moral voice that urged Germany to face up to the Nazi past, the 78-year-old’s authority had been undermined by his silence about his months in Adolf Hitler’s notorious paramilitary combat force.”