Interview with Gunter Grass concerning American-German Relations

Abstract

In a time of mounting concern over the plans of the Reagan Administration to install hundreds ofnew nuclear missiles in Western Europe, many German writers have joined the ranks of the international peace movement. In view of the Cold War, it is of some significance that,from 1981 to 1983, East and West German writers met at four international conferences in order to discuss problems ofpeace and coexistence. Even before, Giinter Grass had become a vocal critic ofAmerican foreign policy and the destabilization of international relations. He was one of the most active participants at three of these conferences and the main organizer (together with Peter Hdrtling, Stephan Hermlin, Uwe Johnson, and Walter Hillerer) of one of them, the Second Encounter: Declaration of Peace in West (April 22-23, 1983), which was intended to counterbalance thefirst Berlin Encounter for Peace, initiated by Stephan Hermlin and held in East (December 13-14, 1981). In the world ofliterature, these conferences represent an unprecedented effort to confront the dangers ofthe accelerating arms racefor the sake of human survival. In August 1983, I1 interviewed some German writers who had either manifested a strong interest in the United States in their work or made significant public statements about American foreign policy. My purpose was to gather information for a book project, A Lost Utopia? New Images ofAmerica in German Literature. Supported by a travel grantfrom the German Academic Exchange Service, I interviewed thefollowing nine writers on their changing views ofthe United States and their attitudes to the peace movement: Bernt Engelmann, H.M. Enzensberger, Erich Fried, Grass, Uwe Johnson, Giinter Kunert, Ulrich Pothast (a philosopher and novelist), Kune Raeber, and Peter Schiitt. Six of these writers are strong supporters of the peace movement, while the others (Enzensberger, Kunert, and Raeber) took a reserved or dffident attitude to such a political involvement. Although my list is far from representative, it is worth considering because of the influence exerted by some of these writers. I visited Grass at his second home in the village of Wewelsfleth near Gliickstadt (Schleswig-Holstein) on August 11, 1983. He had been living there with his new family three weeks ofeach month, alternating between the restless life of and the peaceful countryside. Sitting behind his house there, Grass always sees the crosses ofthe neighboring cemetery, which seems like an extension ofhis backyard. I started the interview by asking him whether he 125