This morning I received a letter from *Dee Eberhart, local veteran of the 42nd "Rainbow" Div. and guest lecturer. I thought it was worth passing on...
Dear Jim,
Last Saturday Morning, at my relatively short Dachau presentation to the D.A.R. in Yakima, I intended to bring to their attention recent articles about Gunther Grass, Nobel Prize Winner, and author of "The Tin Drum, and other books, who by his own recent admission was a member of the Waffen SS (10th SS Panzer Division), but I had run out of time and wasn't able to do so. In an article in The National Review (Sept. 11,2006), the columnist stated that "he (Grass) dismisses his failure over the past 61 years to acknowledge his past, and shows not a trace of remorse or contrition....the scale of hypocrasy is monstrous. Since 1945, Grass has been living a lie, and everything he has said and done is morally suspect."
It was the 10th SS Panzer troops which attacked our regiments 2nd and 3rd Battalians on Jan. 25,1945, along the Moder river in Alsace. After heavy casualties, we contained their attack, and what was left of my platoon captured about as many of them as there was left of us, and I then marched the bunch of them into Haguenau, where our company CP was located. I doubt if Gunther Grass was one of them, but who knows?
Best Regards,
Dee
* I have ordered a DVD of Dee Eberhart's Dachau presentation, which I will also be sharing excerpts from. He has written and had published several books of Poetry based on his WWII experiences and is a frequent guest speaker at schools and other organizations.
-Jim