The Author as Campaigner

LIKE THAT OF ÖRTLICH BETÄUBT, the publication of Aus dem Tagebuch einer Schnecke (Tagebuch) in the fall of 1972 elicited a response that emphasized Grass's political commitment and activities. Such a response was not without justification inasmuch as the “semi-fictive” prose text (Moser 2000, 97) is in part a somewhat fictionalized account of the author's engagement in the campaign of 1969 on behalf of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), an engagement that resulted in that party's strong showing (Grass cites the “figures on our close victory” in DS, 5). As a consequence, the so-called grand coalition then in power, a partnership of Christian Democrats (CDU) and Social Democrats under CDU Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger, during the Third Reich a member of the Nazi party, was dissolved, and Willy Brandt became Chancellor of a new coalition government formed by the SPD in alliance with the Free Democrats (FDP) — a rather momentous event in the postwar history of (West) Germany, in that for the first time in twenty years the CDU was excluded from the control and administration of the Federal Republic. In addition, a new election campaign had begun when the book appeared, and some critics erroneously assumed that Tagebuch had been timed to go on sale at a moment when its impact on the outcome of the 1972 election would be greatest (H. L. Arnold 1997, 121).