Gunter Grass poem creates waves...

Outcry as Gunter Grass poem strongly criticises Israel...

During his long literary career, Gunter Grass has been many things. Author, playwright, sculptor and, unquestionably, Germany's most famous living writer. There is the 1999 Nobel Prize and Mr. Grass's broader post-war role as the country's moral conscience — albeit a claim badly undermined in 2006 when it emerged that the teenage Mr. Grass had served in the Waffen SS. But at the ripe old age of 84, Mr. Grass has triggered a furious row with a poem criticising Israel.

Entitled What Must Be Said and published in the Suddeutsche Zeitung, the lyric warns of a looming Israeli aggression against Iran. It argues that Germany should no longer deliver nuclear submarines to Israel that might carry “all-destroying warheads.