For decades, Günter Grass has been considered Germany's conscience when it came to the country's Nazi past. The author's entire career has dealt with how Germans face up to and come to terms with the darkest chapters of their history. His "Danzig Trilogy" including "The Tin Drum" became the literary mirror of a conflicted post-war generation. But despite his years of moralizing and reflection, Grass apparently couldn't get a hold of his own role during World War II until very recently.

For more than 60 years, Grass has kept secret that he was conscripted into a unit of the infamous Waffen SS  at the tender age of 17. From the middle of 1944 until the end of the war in the spring of 1945, Grass served in the Frundsberg tank division of the elite military outfit. Previously, he had contended that he was teenage helper of an anti-aircraft unit.

Although he did not volunteer for the Waffen SS, Grass' reluctance to admit his ties to the group is understandable. Although many units served as normal -- if fanatical -- soldiers, the Waffen SS was also responsible for guarding concentration camps and was involved in countless war crimes across Europe.

That the revelations come on the eve of the publication of the author's new autobiography has only added oil to the flames of the debate that has consumed Germany over the past few days. Is Grass just cynically fishing for headlines to help sell his book? Many German pundits are incensed about what they see as Grass' bottomless hypocrisy. Some have even called for him to be stripped of his Nobel Prize. But others have defended the author, calling the timing a highly person matter.

All of Germany's major daily newspapers devoted considerable coverage to the topic on Monday. The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung dissects Grass' late confession in no less than three articles including an editorial asking: "Why Was the Talker Silent?" Delving into Grass' long role as one of Germany's leading post-war moral authorities, the paper believes the author has undermined his own credibility as someone who always demanded clarity when dealing with Germany's Nazi legacy. "He shouldn't have remained silent about this part of his biography," the paper writes. "Coming to grips with it earlier wouldn't have made him less credible, rather the opposite. His moral authority would have perhaps even been stronger."

Cologne's main paper, the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, is even harsher in its verdict. "The moral preacher has fallen from his perch -- if he had decided to take this step earlier and from the start made no secret of this role under National Socialism he probably would have rightly found understanding," opines the paper. "But now his droning silence sounds a bit pathological and a little bit cowardly." The paper is particularly irked by how it seems Grass is once again telling the world how so many people were enthusiastic supporters of the Nazi regime during the war. "However, this time he can't deflect with any moral furor. It's not about the many, this time it's about him."

The right-wing daily Die Welt -- not necessarily always a friend of Grass' left-wing politics over the years -- titles its main page-three article on the subject: "End of a Tenure," referring to his "job" over the years judging others. "It's not serving in the Waffen SS, nor his 60-year silence about this fact that make him attackable," writes Die Welt, claiming that it's instead Grass' inability to accept that others might have different views other than his own. The conservative paper connects his fervor during the Third Reich as a teenager with his disdain for Germany's bourgeoisie ever since. "It all has the marks of a mentality formed under National Socialism. The end of his tenure as a moral authority is now here."

The leftist daily Die Tageszeitung addresses the controversy with two articles. The first looks at the latest revelations in the context of his coming autobiography "While Peeling the Onion." The paper says the problem is less that Grass was conscripted into the Waffen SS at all and more the timing of his confession and that it took him so long to come clean. The author will now have to live with the fact everyone can criticize him for his "denial mechanisms," "calculating" nature and the fact that he apparently didn't wish to risk not winning the Nobel Prize for literature. "Grass' works and influence will certainly have to be seen in a different light against the background of his confession," the paper writes.

In a separate editorial Die Tageszeitung is less judgemental, saying Grass deserves "pity rather than the moral guillotine." Although the author is being criticized from countless corners at the moment, the scandal isn't nearly as big as it seems, according to the editorial. "Grass was 16 years old. He didn't fire a shot and tried to get out of training by giving himself jaundice." Still, he isn't totally let off the hook: "Why did Grass fake his biography? Nobody, not even Grass himself can answer this plausibly."

The business daily Financial Times Deutschland doesn't mince words in its assessment of the affair: "Nobody today will accuse Grass of once having been a blinded and misused 17-year-old youthful Nazi. Nobody will question his literary qualities. But the political-moral authority that the author always demanded for himself is ruined by his rather late memory." Like other papers, the FTD points out that Grass made a point of criticizing conservative leaders Helmut Kohl and Ronald Reagan for visiting a cemetery in 1985 that contained the remains of Waffen SS as well as other war dead. "He chose not to use the grand chance to come clean about his own history and gain credibility."