Born in the 20s, he is an early developer, intellectually mature at birth, and quickly able to decide that his `father' is not his real father, and that he dislikes his petit bourgeois milieu so strongly that he stops growing by an act of willpower at the age of 3

But the father is not a monster and has some redeeming virtues.

Born in the 20s, he is an early developer, intellectually mature at birth, and quickly able to decide that his `father' is not his real father, and that he dislikes his petit bourgeois milieu so strongly that he stops growing by an act of willpower at the age of 3

the societies?Oskar's struggle against shame and guilt becomes even more pronounced when his father dies after Oskar throws him back his Nazis party pin and that led to his death by Russian machine gun fire

He ends up hating his father because his father gains the love of Maria and takes Maria away from Oskar, with Oskar believing he is the father of Maria's son, Kurt.

He ends up hating his father because his father gains the love of Maria and takes Maria away from Oskar, with Oskar believing he is the father of Maria's son, Kurt.

The Nazi father's death in the course of swallowing his party pin to hide it from the Russians seems fitting, as does Oskar's desire to bring that death about.

But Oscar destroys his parents' marriage by faking a brain damaging accident, for which his mother's husband takes the blame; he is a witness and enabler to his mother's continuing infidelity, which demonstrates to him the rewards of deceit and the limits of religion; he competes with the two men who are his father figures, with terrible consequences for each man; and he takes as his true emotional father figure another midget, this one a confidant of Joseph Goebbels

He is there at their victory parades and gruesome defeats, when the Russians occupy Danzig and kill his alleged father Matzerath and when an errant bomb takes the life of his sweatheart, Rosarita

His grandmother's skirts, the horse's head with the eels emerging from it, his "father's" death during the Soviet invasion, Jan Bronski's obsessive search for skat cards during the attack on the Polish post office and Oskar's reaction to the statue of Jesus coming to life will always be with me

The Onion Cellar is as flippant an interpretation of "German guilt" as I've ever read; yet it rings true, for that time as well as now.