Günter Grass's attempt to hide his past as a member of the Waffen SS is a shameful betrayal of his countrymen, and invalidates his life's work

'The intelligentsia ignored the irruption of religious fanaticism into domestic British politics. In the face of these foes of civilisation, silence is the worst form of cowardice'

'I was fond of my father's old friend Günter Grass. I'd like to think he knew better'

The German Genius: Europe's Third Renaissance, the Second Scientific Revolution and the Twentieth Century by Peter Watson; Fame by Daniel Kehlmann; The Box by Günter Grass; and Portrait of the Mother as a Young Woman by Friedrich Christian Delius