“Was gesagt werden muss”: Concerning Grass’s Schweigen (with an Epistolary Coda)

The considerable sound and fury engendered by the publication of Günter Grass’s editorial poem “Was gesagt werden muss” signifies something.¹ What exactly is difficult to determine given the hubbub of pundits from Schirrmacher (FAZ),² Joffe (DIE ZEIT)³ and Diez (Der Spiegel),⁴ from Herf (New Republic)⁵ to Kulish and Brunner (New York Times),⁶ and including the various engaged interviews and talk show debates documented on YouTube,⁷ as well as the pronouncements of politicians and diplomats; it is perhaps relevant here to remind you that “This Week in Germany,” the internet site of the German Information Center at the Embassy in Washington, opted not to report on the controversy at all, whereas The Atlantic Times published an article about the controversy in its May edition.⁸

Whatever else must be said, Grass’s political rhetoric in print had its desired effect—it drew attention to him. As Grass put it in puckish comments to the participants of the 2007 Bremen conference, “Die Medien und Günter Grass,”⁹ a conference that focused on the Zwiebel memoir—“Es freut mich, dass ich Arbeitgeber bin.”¹⁰

Some critics pick up on Grass’s rhetorically motivated reference (to what Joffe called “der alte A.”¹¹)—“das Verdikt ‘Antisemitismus’ ist geläufig.”¹² They advance sophisticated arguments for and against a “verdict” of guilt, just as Grass imagined they might do. On the other hand, Martin Walser—of all people!—stonewalled Iris Radisch in a ZEIT interview. Intentionally or not, the response to her opening question was an echo of Grass’s Schweigen:

DIE ZEIT:

Herr Walser, hat Ihnen das Gedicht Was gesagt werden muss von Günter Grass gefallen?

Martin Walser:

Das kann ich nicht sagen.

Late in the game he played his hand:

DIE ZEIT:

Sie wollen also gar nichts sagen?

Martin Walser:

Das Einzige, was ich Ihnen zu diesem Projekt liefern kann, ist: Günter Grass ist natürlich kein Antisemit.¹³

Like Grass, ultimately Walser broke his silence, and he might be paraphrased as having said: Das Einzige, was gesagt werden muss, ist: Grass ist natürlich kein Antisemit.

Was gesagt werden muss is that the editorial poem is hardly a gem aesthetically, in my view not even a diamond in the rough. In a television interview, Grass defended himself by referencing the likes of Walther von der Vogelweide and Heinrich Heine,¹⁴ an ad auctoritatem tactic in the service of self nach dem Motto “Denk’ ich an Israel in der Nacht / Dann bin ich um den Schlaf gebracht . . . .” Not without rhetorical flair, one marked by theme and variations on both the noun and verb Schweigen / schweigen—

Und zugegeben: ich schweige nicht mehr, weil ich die Heuchelei des Westens überdrüssig bin; zudem ist zu hoffen, es mögen sich viele vom Schweigen befreien . . .

Grass’s strophes trace and valorize the process of sounding off, of breaking the alleged silence for Truth’s sake, for the sake of humanity’s survival. Though politically dissonant, even cacophonic the sounds may be and become, even naïve, wrongheaded and ill informed, his intellectual honesty does him some honor.

Was muss gesagt werden?

Grass’s visualization of a nuclear showdown has, of course, long been a component of his Weltanschauung,¹⁵ at least since the days of “Orwells Jahrzehnt,” the period of a decidedly antinuclear stance. Listen for a moment to his “Offener Brief an die Abgeordneten des Deutschen Bundestages,” dated November 1983. He anticipates the poem’s title by thirty years:

Warum also diesen »Offenen Brief«? Weil es gesagt werden muß. Weil der Ihnen auferlegten Verantwortung späterhin keine Ausrede erlaubt werden darf. Weil uns Schriftstellern die Kassandra-Nachfolge (oft gegen unseren Willen) wie vorgeschrieben ist. . . . Sie können gewiß sein: mir sind die sowjetischen SS-20-Raketen genau so fürchterlich wie die uns zugeordneten US-amerikanischen Pershing II und Cruise Missiles.¹⁶

And listen to the “Rede von der Hoffnung” in February 1985—

Meine Damen und Herren, während ich Seite nach Seite ein dickes Buch schreibe, das die Selbstvernichtung des Menschengeschlechtes...