True to the most basic of German instincts and thus following in the footsteps of the Teutons, Hohenstaufen emperors, and Deutschromer art worshippers, I was drawn to Italy, my ultimate destination being Palermo, where I had felt so at home in my childhood dreams as a squire or falconer for Frederick II and a member of Konradin's retinue when the Staufers went under.
G. Grass, Peeling the onion (2006), tr. M.H. Heim (2007), 314
I tried to work up the requisite hatred for the reputed blue-bloods, but in fact I was torn. From the period of my mental excursions into the dark corners - and enlightened ones - of German history I had retained my admiration for the Hohenstaufen line of Emperors; I would have been only too happy to serve as a squire to Frederick II in thirteenth-century Palermo. And when it came to the Peasant Wars a few centuries later, I was not only a fan of Thomas Muntzer's, I also sided with the upper-class ringleaders of the insurrection, men with noble names like Franz von Sickingen, Georg von Frundsberg, and Gorz von Berlichingen. Ulrich von Hutten was my idol, the Pope and his clerics my enemies.
G. Grass, Peeling the onion (2006), tr. M.H. Heim (2007), 90-91
