Günter Grass, Nobel-winning novelist dies aged 87
Matthias Wegner, spokesman for the Steidl publishing house, confirmed that Günter Grass died on Monday morning in a Lübeck hospital.
Mr Grass was lauded by Germans for helping to revive their culture in the aftermath of the Second World War and helping to give voice and support to democratic discourse in the post-war nation.
But he provoked the ire of many in 2006 when he revealed in his memoir Skinning The Onion that, as a teenager, he had served in the Waffen-SS, the combat arm of Adolf Hitler’s notorious paramilitary organisation.