The German writer's latest poem, 'What Must Be Said', has not gone down well with the Israeli government

Age: 84.

Appearance: Like a potato.

That's a little unkind: OK, a potato with a pipe.

Occupation: Writer, sage, controversialist.

Has he been stirring up any controversies recently? Oh, stop playing dumb. Of course he has – with his poem "What Must Be Said".

Give us a controversial bit please: "Warum sage ich jetzt erst, gealtert und mit letzter Tinte: Die Atommacht Israel gefährdet den ohnehin brüchigen Weltfrieden?"

Wow! Quite.

But what does it mean? I failed my German GCSE. It means Israel is as bad as Iran, and it's about time Germans stopped feeling hamstrung by the Holocaust and said so.

I can see that might not play well in Jerusalem. How has the Israeli government responded? It has accused him of "fanning the flames of hatred against Israel" and banned him from the country. Some Israelis are also campaigning for his Nobel prize for literature to be taken away.

Is the poem really so bad? As a poem, it's terrible – a manifesto masquerading as a poem. But as a plea for consistency in dealing with nuclear powers in the Middle East, it's very powerful. There's just one problem.

Which is? Grass was a Nazi soldier in his late teens, and the Israelis are not going to let him forget it.

Surely he can't be held responsible for his actions if he was so young? The real problem is that, until 2006, when he was promoting his memoirs, he omitted to mention that he fought in the Waffen SS. Critics called him Günter GraSS, and accused him of hypocrisy for spending 60 years calling for Germany to come to terms with its Nazi past while concealing his own.

How did he defend himself? Feebly. "In my shame, I wanted to keep silent about what I had welcomed in the stupid pride of my youth."

Do read: His early novels The Tin Drum, Cat and Mouse, and Dog Years (the "Danzig trilogy", named after his birthplace), published in the late 1950s and early 60s.

Don't read: All his other stuff.

That's a ridiculous thing to say. Hey, this is Pass Notes, not the LRB. Like the Israeli government, in this case, we specialise in kneejerk reactions and blanket condemnation.