Yet there were two reasons that kept me from happily joining in the collective bashing of Germany's most prominent writer. In the public perception, the earnest-looking man with the bushy moustache has fulfilled the role of a moral authority ever since he made his name with The Tin Drum in 1959. The vigour of his writing gradually fizzled out over the years. Instead, he devoted himself to politics — so much so that journalists used to joke that whenever a political story broke a statement by Grass would come rattling out of the fax machine before you could count to three.

The idea of him being Germany's good conscience radically changed with his revelation in old age that he had joined the Waffen SS in his youth, though whether he volunteered is still debated. Grass turned into the bad conscience of Germany's intellectual scene: was it possible for Germans to criticise Israel? Many Germans say they support Israel's right to exist but are critical of its government, as Grass himself claims to be. But is this latent anti-Semitism? Such attitudes can be found in many a European country (think of Ken Livingstone in Britain). So why the uproar in Germany? Surely it cannot only be the Nazi past. 

When I was growing up, Grass happened to be a friend of my father, who is also a writer. I have happy memories of a family trip to Grass's house in a village in Schleswig-Holstein, where the two men would go on long walks through the lush meadows. I would usually accompany them, even though I was too young to participate in their conversations. What sticks in my mind is that Grass seemed seriously interested in talking — and listening — to a 13-year-old girl, even if that meant sitting under an oak tree convincing her that capers weren't as disgusting as she thought they were, or explaining his latest sculpture of an owl to her. I was fond of him.

Why should my personal experience of him matter, you may wonder: an anti-Semite will remain one, even if he's nice to children. However, the Grass row brings to life the painful question every young German — including those of my generation whose left-leaning parents had already worked through their own parents' wrongdoings in the Nazi era — has to deal with: can one have anti-Semitic feelings and yet be a nice person? In the case of Grass, now 84, it is much harder for me to come to terms with than I would have imagined. 

So what is one supposed to do? Just ignore him, as one is often tempted to do if vile thoughts are voiced by someone dear to one — always the easy option, and not always wrong. The better answer is to engage in  vigorous debate, and not hide behind the very phrases that let today's anti-Semites cloak themselves in the mantle of valiant breakers of stifling taboos. If it is not possible to coherently defend not just the nebulous and patronising notion of Israel's right to exist, but to raise the issue of concrete support for a sea-based second-strike capability in the context of possible war with Iran, then we are making it too easy for elderly writers with worrying ideas. I'd like to think that Günter Grass knew better. I'm not so sure about the many Germans and other Europeans who silently share his feelings about Israel.