The Grass is green on Guenter's side

Helsinki (Finland): The Nobel Foundation on Thursday said it would not revoke the Nobel Prize for Literature awarded to Guenter Grass after the German author confessed to serving in the Waffen-SS, Adolf Hitler's elite Nazi troops.

Grass, who won the prize in 1999, said in a newspaper interview last week that he had been called up to the Waffen-SS at 17, an admission which has seen the Nobel laureate come under attack from writers, critics, historians and politicians.

Some have called for him to be stripped of the prize. "A prize has never been taken back. Once somebody has accepted a prize it is impossible to withdraw it," said Jonna Petterson, spokeswoman of the Nobel Foundation, the body which finances the Nobel prizes.

"It has never happened and will most likely never happen in the future either. It (the award) is final once it has been accepted," he said.