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Prague (dpa) - The Czech chapter of the international writers organization PEN said Sunday it may consider withdrawing its literary prize for German writer Guenter Grass after his disclosure that he had once belonged to the Waffen SS.
Jiri Stransky, chairman of the local PEN chapter, told Czech television, "we are going to discuss it...I am not going to let it go unnoticed."
He was referring to Grass's disclosure in an interview at the weekend in Germany that as a 17-year-old in the waning days of World War Two he had been a member of the Nazi Party fighting force Waffen SS, something he had kept secret until now.
In 1994, the Czech PEN chapter had awarded Grass its Karel-Capek prize, named after writer Karel Capek (1890-1938). His writer and painter brother, Josef Capek, was murdered in the Bergen-Belsen Nazi concentration camp.
Grass, the 1999 Nobel Laureate for Literature, is about to publish his memoirs in which he writes about having been a member of the Waffen SS.
The leftist, anti-war writer, 78, said his past silence about this had "weighed" on him, leading him to come out with the admission.
Till now, Grass had portrayed his military career as service in the regular army, preceded by a spell from 1944 onwards in one of the many home-guard anti-aircraft units, similar to that in which Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, served.
Copyright 2006 dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH
