Günter Grass, the German author who has died at a clinic in Lübeck aged 87, won the 1999 Nobel Prize for Literature and was known for his critical view of Germany’s Nazi past, developed in imaginative novels including The Tin Drum.

德国作家君特•格拉斯(Günter Grass)在吕贝克(Lübeck)的一家诊所去世，享年87岁。他获得过1999年的诺贝尔文学奖(Nobel Prize for Literature)，以批判德国的纳粹历史而闻名，这些批判性观点在《铁皮鼓》(The Tin Drum)等富于想象力的小说中都有体现。

Hubert Winkels, the literary editor of German public radio, said that while the postwar years had produced other great writers in Germany, Grass was “unique” in establishing himself as a figure that spanned culture, politics and society.

德国公共广播电台文学编辑胡贝特•温克尔斯(Hubert Winkels)说，虽然战后德国也出现了其他伟大的作家，但格拉斯“独一无二的”地方在于，他是一位在文化、政治和社会领域都确立了影响力的人物。

Mr Winkels told the FT: “He was engaged not only on German but on worldwide issues such as disarmament. Nobody can do this any more. The worlds of culture and politics and so on have become too separate.”

温克尔斯对英国《金融时报》表示：“他不仅参与德国的事务，而且参与裁军等全球性议题。再也没有人能做到这一点。文化世界与政治等其他领域已经非常割裂了。”

His reputation as a moral authority suffered in 2006 when he revealed that he had, as a 17-year-old conscript, served briefly in a tank division of the Waffen SS, a military formation of the Nazi party. Grass had for decades maintained he had only served in flak units.

2006年，格拉斯作为道德权威的声誉受到打击。当时，他透露自己在17岁时曾应征入伍，在武装党卫军（Waffen SS，纳粹领导下的一支军事部队）的一个装甲师短暂服役。此前几十年里格拉斯一直坚称，他只在高炮部队服役过。

Grass was criticised not so much for joining the Waffen SS, which many young men were forced to do at the end of the second world war, but for preserving his public silence on it for so long. He explained that only late in the day had he found “the literary form” to write about the experience, in a memoir entitled Peeling the Onion.

人们批评格拉斯主要不是因为他曾加入武装党卫军（二战快结束时许多小伙子都被强招入伍），而是因为他在这件事上如此长时间地对公众保持沉默。他在名为《剥洋葱》(Peeling the Onion)的回忆录中解释说，他花了很长时间才找到书写那段经历的“文学形式”。

His critics charged him with hypocrisy, asking how he could have been so critical of other Germans’ reckoning with the Nazi era when his own was flawed or, at best, incomplete.

格拉斯的批评者指责他虚伪，质问他如何能在自身的反思有缺陷——或者说好听点，不全面——的情况下，如此激烈地批评其他德国人对纳粹时代的反思。

However, the controversy was yesterday largely set aside, with tributes emphasising Grass’s literary achievements. Norbert Lammert, the parliamentary speaker, said: “With Günter Grass we are losing not only one of the most significant writers in the German language but also an engaged citizen who repeatedly took public positions.”

不过，这一争议昨日基本上未被提及，悼念活动主要强调了格拉斯的文学成就。德国联邦议院议长诺贝特•拉默特(Norbert Lammert)表示：“君特•格拉斯的辞世让我们不仅失去了一位极其重要的德语作家，也失去了一位不断公开表达立场、热衷参与政治的公民。”

Imre Kertesz, a Hungarian-born ­Jewish writer and Holocaust concentration camp survivor who also won a literature Nobel, said: “We did not deal with the same subjects but we were friends and we had mutual respect.”

生于匈牙利的犹太作家、大屠杀(Holocaust)集中营的幸存者、同为诺贝尔文学奖得主的凯尔泰斯•伊姆雷(Kertész Imre)说：“虽然我们不曾涉猎同样的题材，但我们是朋友，我们相互尊重。”

A discordant note was struck in Israel where national radio said Grass had gone too far in his criticism of the Jewish state. In 2012, Grass was banned from visiting the country after publishing

但以色列方面却传出了一个不和谐的音符，以色列国家广播电台表示，格拉斯对这个犹太国家的批评太过头了。2012年，以色列禁止格拉斯访问该国，因为此前他发表了一首题为《必须说点什么》(What Must Be Said)的诗，并在其中暗示以色列的核武库对伊朗构成了威胁。

a poem called “What Must Be Said”, in which he ­suggested that Israel’s nuclear ­arsenal was a threat to Iran.

格拉斯1927年10月16日生于但泽自由市。但泽是波罗的海一个国际化港口城市，以讲德语的人居多，波兰对该市拥有一些有限的权利。1945年后，但泽变成了波兰的格但斯克，但格拉斯仍保留着对故乡的热爱，他经常造访这里并为德波和解做出了贡献。

Grass was born on October 16 1927, in the free city of Danzig, a cosmopolitan Baltic port with a German-speaking majority and over which the Polish state had some limited rights. He retained a love for his birthplace after 1945 when

他在上世纪40年代末定居西德，学过琢石和雕塑，之后转向写作。后来，他主要待在柏林和位于吕贝克附近的家。吕贝克与但泽一样，同为有着悠久历史的波罗的海港口城市。

it became the Polish city of Gdansk, ­visiting often and contributing to ­German-Polish reconciliation.

格拉斯的经历构成了他的“但泽三部曲”的基础：第一部是1959年出版的《铁皮鼓》，接下来是《猫与鼠》(Cat and Mouse)和《狗年月》(Dog Years)。在这些作品中，他探讨了德国的历史。

He settled in the late 1940s in West Germany and trained as a stonemason and sculptor before turning to writing. He later divided his time between Berlin and a home near Lübeck, like Danzig a Baltic port city with a long history.

格拉斯用一种复杂的幻想形式来阐述他的思想，充满魔幻现实主义的《铁皮鼓》就是一个典型。格拉斯获诺贝尔奖时，瑞典皇家科学院(Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences)赞扬他的作品“以戏谑的黑色寓言描绘了历史被遗忘的一面”。

Grass’s experiences formed the basis of his Danzig Trilogy, three works in which he explored German history, starting in 1959 with the publication of The Tin Drum. This was followed by Cat and Mouse and Dog Years.

在文学之外，格拉斯还参与德国政治。他总体上支持德国社会民主党和中左翼思想，不过他明确地与政治激进主义划清了界线。

Grass developed his ideas in a complex imaginative forms, not least the magical realism that suffuses The Tin Drum. When he won his Nobel Prize, the Swedish Academy praised works “whose frolicsome black fables portray the forgotten face of history”.

1990年，他站出来公开反对德国统一，警告人们统一的德国将不可避免地变得具有侵略性。然而，这些言论引起的争议与16年后爆发的风暴相比显得无足轻重。2006年时，历史学家汉斯-乌尔里希•瓦尔特(Hans-Ulrich Walter)告诉英国《金融时报》，他不认为格拉斯披露自己曾加入武装党卫军“有什么值得兴奋之处”。但他表示，他“很难理解的是”为什么格拉斯等了这么久才披露此事。

Alongside literature, Grass involved himself in German politics, supporting the social-democratic party and left-of-centre ideas generally, though staying well clear of political radicalism.