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Nobel laureate's memoirs sell out after SS confession By Lee Glendinning and agencies The publishers have brought forward the release date and German bookshops are struggling to keep up supplies. Such is the demand for Gunter Grass's autobiography, which has stunned Germany with revelations that the Nobel-prize winning novelist once served in Hitler's Waffen SS as a teenager. Grass, 78 - regarded by many as Germany's moral arbiter - recounted the secret shame that has weighed upon him for decades following his involvement in the elite military force, in a pre-publication interview with a German newspaper last weekend. His admissions...

Poland's Walesa says Grass owes Poles explanation By Natalia Reiter REUTERS 8:58 a.m. August 18, 2006 WARSAW – Polish Solidarity hero Lech Walesa urged German author Guenter Grass on Friday to prove that a confession about his membership in Hitler's SS was not just a marketing ploy to promote his new novel. The former Polish president also said he would give up his honorary citizenship of Poland's city of Gdansk, if Grass, also a holder of the same title, failed to explain why he decided to confess when his autobiography 'Peeling Onions' came out. 'If Grass will not address his...

Jewish leader criticizes Grass 2 hours, 11 minutes ago BERLIN - The head of Germany's main Jewish organization has criticized writer Guenter Grass for waiting decades to reveal that he had served during World War II in the Waffen-SS, the Nazis' dreaded military force. Charlotte Knobloch, president of the Central Council of Jews, said Tuesday that the admission negated Grass' longtime criticisms of German politics and society for not adequately dealing with the Nazi past. "His long years of silence over his own SS past reduce his earlier statements to absurdities," Knobloch was quoted as saying by the Netzeitung online...

Walesa wants Grass to give up Gdansk honorary citizenship after SS admission By: The Canadian Press at 21:42 on August 13, 2006, EST. BERLIN (AP) - Nobel peace laureate Lech Walesa wants German novelist Guenter Grass to give up his honorary citizenship of the Polish city of Gdansk after admitting that he served during World War II in the Waffen-SS, a German newspaper reported Sunday. Grass, 78, revealed in a weekend newspaper interview that he was called up at age 17 to a division of the combat arm of Adolf Hitler's dreaded paramilitary forces. Asked why he was making the...

Nobel Prize-winning German writer Guenter Grass, author of the great anti-Nazi novel The Tin Drum, has admitted serving in the Waffen-SS. He told a German newspaper he had been recruited at the age of 17 into an SS tank division and served in Dresden. Previously it was only known he had served as a soldier and was wounded and taken prisoner by US forces. Speaking before the publication of his war memoirs, he said his silence over the years had "weighed" upon him. "My silence over all these years is one of the reasons I wrote this book [Peeling Onions],"...

Nobel prize winner Grass admits serving in Nazi SS Fri Aug 11, 2006 8:37 PM BST BERLIN (Reuters) - Nobel prize-winning German author Guenter Grass has admitted for the first time that he served in the Waffen-SS, Adolf Hitler's elite Nazi troops. In an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Grass, 78, said he volunteered for submarine service towards the end of World War Two. He was called up instead to serve in the Waffen-SS in the eastern city of Dresden. The author, best known for his first novel "The Tin Drum" and an active supporter of Germany's Social Democratic...

Yesterday I visited Buchenwald concentration camp, the largest such camp in Germany (the larger ones Germany put outside of Germany.) Since it is my 4th time in Germany I felt kind of an obligation to visit it...a duty to face the truth in this beautiful land. Most of the camp is gone, almost all of the prisoner's barracks are. Outside the fence, about half the SS barracks are there--nicely painted yellow, with red tile roofs, resembling ten thousand other German buildings in other places. I had heard that birds don't roost inside the camp , and I think it may...

Bill proposes Estonia's SS soldiers be known as 'freedom fighters' TALLINN. May 18 (Interfax) - The parliamentary factions of Estonia's Fatherland Union and Respublika parties, have again initiated a bill "On the Armed Struggle of Estonian Citizens Against Soviet Occupation" which describes Estonian soldiers who fought in the German army during World War II, as "freedom fighters." The bill defines the armed struggle in Estonia as a struggle for the republic's liberation, and the citizens involved in it as fighters for freedom, sources in the Fatherland Union party told Interfax on Thursday. In submitting the bill to parliament, Deputy Trivimi...

Enhanced pension deals are county's albatross... The county has the distinction of carrying more retirees (6,050) than active employees (4,631) on county health insurance. Add in 3,100 spouses and dependents of retirees, and the county is insuring more than 9,000 individuals on the retiree side. The county now pays out more in health care for retirees than for active employees. In addition to her monthly check, she was promised, and cherishes, free health insurance for the rest of her life. It is the sum of such promises to Schumann and 6,000-plus other retirees that is a major stumbling block as...

No. You may not have my Social Security number Wednesday, April 26, 2006 SCOTT MOYERS ~ Southeast Missourian (Me) loathes giving out her Social Security number. That's why when the 59-year-old Cape Girardeau resident is asked for it, she's more than reluctant. She refuses. "I guess I'm just stubborn about it," she said last week. "I have no idea what they're going to do with it or where that number is going to wind up. My Social Security number is just private to me." (Me)has lost doctors, changed where she shops and told more than one eye-rolling cashier that she...

Here's what I believe to be true regarding some of the most important issues facing America today, and what most politicians apparently don't. IMMIGRATION LAW ENFORCEMENT I'm going to be as blunt as I can be with respect to the illegal alien problem in this country, while refraining from using the profane terms that routinely leap to my mind every time I think about our government's unrelenting failure to address this issue in any responsible way. To get right to the point, any person in this country who doesn't support (A) doing whatever is necessary to stop illegals from entering...

Bush Plan Would Cut Survivor Benefits By DAVID ESPO ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON (AP) - If President Bush gets his way, the venerable $255 Social Security death benefit will fade into history. And 16- and 17-year-old high school dropouts will lose their monthly survivor payments. Not, however, if Democrats get their way. "The Republican Congress has given a whole new meaning to the term 'women and children first,'" Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel, chairman of the House Democratic campaign committee, said Tuesday. "There they go again," said New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, who heads the party's Senate campaign effort. "They can't resist...

Yard reopens inquiry into former Nazi soldiers still alive in Britain · Labour MP insists search sends important message · Researcher believes police hunt is 10 years too late Ian Cobain Saturday February 4, 2006 The Guardian Scotland Yard has relaunched its search for war criminals almost seven years after its specialist Nazi-hunting unit was disbanded, the Guardian has learned. An eight-strong team from the anti-terrorist branch has been examining the backgrounds of British residents suspected of committing atrocities during the second world war. The team is focusing on former members of a division of the Waffen SS which was...

When congressional Republicans, a free-spending lot who have helped ratchet up federal spending to record levels, proposed slowing the rate of federal spending growth by a hair, congressional Democrats accused Republicans of wanting to starve the poor and recreate Dickensian England.That scenario, in a nutshell, explains the looming fiscal crisis at all levels of government. The debate is between those who want enormous government and those who want something even bigger than that. Hence, the Associated Press reported this week that "entitlement" spending is growing out of control. The word "entitlement" itself is a problem. Americans believe they are entitled...

A group of elderly Holocaust survivors came forward Friday with accounts of a death squad they formed after World War II to take revenge on their Nazi persecutors, recounting a brazen operation in which they poisoned hundreds of SS officers. In a broadcast on television's Channel Two, the survivors - some of whom fought in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising - recalled hunting down SS officers in the dead of night. Disguised as British or American officers, they would drag the SS men out of their homes and execute them, they said. In their largest operation, the group, code-named "The Avengers,"...

Russia upset about Estonian monument Big News Network.com Friday 14th October, 2005 (UPI) The Russian government released a statement Friday saying Estonia has mocked the memory of victims of fascism by restoring a monument to an SS legion. The monument to Estonians who fought on the side of Germany during World War II was put up last year, but taken down after an international outcry, the Novosti news agency reported. The monument is now set to be dedicated Saturday with government officials present. It is especially outrageous that this is happening in the year that marks 60 years since the...

Could proposed new intelligence-gathering powers for the Pentagon lead to spying on U.S. citizens? The question is being asked as the White House considers new roles for the military inside America's borders. The Pentagon would be granted new powers to conduct undercover intelligence gathering inside the United States—and then withhold any information about it from the public—under a series of little noticed provisions now winding their way through Congress. Citing in part the need for “greater latitude” in the war on terror, the Senate Intelligence Committee recently approved broad-ranging legislation that gives the Defense Department a long sought and potentially...

Lord, Keep our Troops forever in Your care Give them victory over the enemy... Grant them a safe and swift return... Bless those who mourn the lost. . FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer for all those serving their country at this time. .................................................................. .................... ........................................... U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues Where Duty, Honor and Countryare acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated. Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should...

On the flight home this morning, I was unfortunate enough to have a bleeder sit next to me. By bleeder, I mean he was invading my space because he was large and his body was spilling over into my seat. I've seen worse cases than what I had today but let's hear your experiences.

Santiago "Jimmy" Gallegos, 59, an undocumented immigrant with dementia who has run up a $40,000 bill at a Hill Country nursing home since December, will likely soon be deported to Mexico. Santiago Gallegos (right), an undocumented immigrant with dementia, lives at the Cedar Hills Geriatric Center in Camp Wood. He has run up a $40,000 bill but those at the nursing home will be sad to see him go. "We're going to take him over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Del Rio, and they are going to take him to the Mexican Consulate. We're waiting for the call," said...