Grass attended a Danzig Gymnasium Conradinum. Drafted into a Arbeitsdienst, he was maimed around 1945 and sent to an American prison-camp. Around 1946 & 1947 he worked inside the mine & received the mason's education. For numerous years he exposed sculpture & graphics, number 1 at a Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, then at a Universität der Künste Berlin. He as well worked as an creator & travelled ofttimes. He married inside 1954 and since 1960 has lived in Berlin as well as a portion-half-time inside Schleswig-Holstein. He took an active role in the Social-Democratic (SPD) party & supported Willy Brandt. Divorced inside 1978, he remarried in 1979.

Grass became active in the peace movement and visited Calcutta for six months.

From either 1983 to 1986 he held the presidency of the Berlin Akademie 500 Künste (Academy of Arts).

In the period of the revolution of 1989-90, Grass argued for continued separation of the ii Germanies, asserting that a unified Germany would necessarily resume its role when belligerent united states-state. He abandoned his mission of gradual socialist reform through the existent West German political institutions. Grass instead adopted the philosophy of direct action, similar thereto advocated per immature generation of 1968.

English-speaking readers probably understand Grass better when andy skinner of The Tin Drum (Die Blechtrommel), published in 1959 (film version by director Volker Schlöndorff). It was followed around 1961 per novelette "Cat and Mouse" (Katz und Maus") and in 1963 by the novel "Mutt Years" ("Hundejahre"), which together with "A Tin Drum" form what is known as The Danzig Trilogy. All three works deal with the rise of Nazism and with the war experience in the unique cultural setting of Danzig and the delta of the Vistula River. "Pooch Years," in many respects a sequel to "The Tin Drum," portrays into the area's mixed ethnicities and complex historical background in lyrical prose that is highly evocative.

Grass received dozens of international awards and in 1999 achieved the highest literary honour: the Nobel Prize for Literature. His literature is commonly categorized as part of the artistic movement of Vergangenheitsbewältigung.

Representatives of the City of Bremen joined together to establish the Günter Grass Foundation, with the aim of establishing a centralized collection of his numerous works, especially his many personal readings, videos and films. The Günter Grass House in Lübeck houses exhibitions, an archive and a library.

Comments on World War II

Bibliography

Danziger Trilogie Die Blechtrommel (1959) Katz und Maus (1961) Hundejahre (1963) Örtlich betäubt (1969) Aus dem Tagebuch einer Schnecke (1972) Der Butt (1979) Das Treffen in Telgte (1979) Kopfgeburten oder Die Deutschen sterben aus (1980) Die Rättin (1986) Zunge zeigen. Ein Tagebuch in Zeichnungen (1988) Unkenrufe (1992) Ein weites Feld (1995) Mein Jahrhundert (1999) Im Krebsgang (2002) Letzte Tänze (2003)

English translations

The Danzig Trilogy The Tin Drum (1959) Cat and Mouse (1963) Dog Years (1965) Four Plays (1967) Speak out! Speeches, Open Letters, Commentaries (1969) Local Anaesthetic (1970) From the Diary of a Snail (1973) In the Egg and Other Poems (1977) The Meeting at Telgte (1981) The Flounder (1978) Headbirths, or, the Germans are Dying Out (1982) The Rat (1987) Show Your Tongue (1987) Two States One Nation? (1990) The Call of the Toad (1992) The Plebeians Rehearse the Uprising (1996) My Century (1999) Crabwalk (2002)