Gunter Grass reveals he served in SS

The 78-year-old Grass said he revealed this for the first time in his memoir "Peeling Onions" which is due to appear in September.

So far, it had only been known that the author of "The Tin Drum" was conscripted into the German air defence forces.

But in his autobiography he also recounts that he tried to join the Third Reich's submarine forces when he was 15 years old but was rejected because he was too young.

He says that he was drafted into the Waffen SS the following year but denies suggestions that he joined willingly.

Grass, now a prominent leftist and pacifist, was wounded in 1945 and sent to an American prisoner of war camp.