The Günter-Grass-House was opened in 2002 on the 75
birthday of Günter Wilhelm Grass, an author and Nobel Prize Winner for literature.
The building is the possession of a Luebeck cultural endowment. The house is
located in the Glockengießerstraße across from the Kathrinen Church, and
is used as an exhibition space, as well as for art and culture discussions. Behind the
house is a garden with a path to the neighbouring Willy-Brandt-House. In this garden many
sculptures and a part of the Berlin Wall are displayed. Günter Grass also requested a
path from this garden to the “Bürgergärten” (Residential Gardens) east of the
Königsstraße which ends at the Hospital of the Holy Ghost.
Günter Wilhelm Grass was born 1927 in Danzig (Gdansk) but he lived in West Germany
and became a famous author after his novel: “The Tin Drum” (1959) was published. He
studied sculpture and graphics in Düsseldorf and Berlin. Later, he worked as an
author and travelled around the world. Günter Grass created about 3,000 drawings
and sculptures in his life. Grass was an active member of the SPD and even worked
with the former Federal Chancellor of Germany, Willy Brandt. Grass was always in
opposition to left-wing radicals. In 1980, he visited Calcutta for six months. On August 12,
2006 he confessed that he was a member of the “Waffen SS” (the Nazi elite force),
at the age of 15, where he had joined the German Navy.
In an Interview with BBC, Grass said this: “It happened as it did to many of my age. We were
in the labour service and all at once, a year later, the call-up notice lay on the table.
Only when I got to Dresden did I learn it was the Waffen-SS.”