“Speak Out!”—Günter Grass as an International Intellectual

Abstract

The political engagement of Günter Grass, Germany's most significant contemporary writer is by no means limited only to German affairs but has for decades also extended across a broad spectrum of international issues. This study thus centres on the question, hitherto only touched on in the research literature, of Grass's profile as an international intellectual. It primarily deals with his critical attitude towards the United States of America, Israel, and the project of European integration, where it emerges that Grass's public interventions are directed above all against the misuse of political power, as perpetrated for example by the USA during the Cold War or later in Iraq. At the same time, Grass has, at an international level, taken the part of those who have fallen victim to power-centred politics, those who are discriminated against, those who have been forgotten, such as the fatwa-threatened Salman Rushdie, the endangered Israeli population during the Six Day War and the first Gulf War, and the European ethnic group the Roma.