Grass "still standing" after attacks over SS past

BERLIN, Sep 4 (Reuters) Nobel prize winning German novelist Guenter Grass said today he was still on his feet despite weeks of sharp criticism for his half century of silence about his time in Hitler's Waffen-SS.

''A lot has been said over the last three weeks. But I'm still standing on my two feet,'' Grass said at the launch of his new autobiographical book ''Peeling the Onion.'' Grass, one of Germany's best-known writers and viewed by many in the country as a moral authority, has called on Germans to be open about their past for decades.

But three weeks ago, the 78-year-old shocked admirers at home and abroad by disclosing he had been called up and served in the Waffen-SS towards the end of World War Two.

A representative of the Steidl publishing house asked Grass the question: ''Why now?''. But at his first open public appearance since the revelation, Grass gave no explanation for the long silence about his time in the Nazi combat unit.

''This was a long process. I had a not unjustified mistrust of autobiographies,'' Grass said.

The Waffen SS, which was initially composed of volunteers, was a highly-trained unit which took part in the Holocaust and committed war crimes. By the end of the war, however, most members were drafted and many were under 18.

Grass has said that he joined the SS in order to escape from his family and has denied ever firing a shot. But some critics inside and outside Germany say that this explanation is too meagre and comes too late.

Reuters AB KP2325