The German author of "Die Blechtrommel ("The Tin Drum") and Nobel Prize in Literature winner, Günter Grass, has died at the age of 87 at a hospital in Lubeck, Germany following an infection he received only a few days earlier, reports The Guardian.

Grass published "The Tin Drum," which was his first novel, in 1959. It was this breakthrough novel that gave him international notoriety and a reputation that would later lead to him receiving the Nobel prize.

He was born in modern-day Gdansk, Poland in 1927. But at the time it was recognized as the "Free City of Danzig." He was recruited into the Waffen SS in 1944 at the age of 16. But he was such a late bloomer that he was able to avoid involvement with the Nazi regime. In his autobiography, he referred to his time with the Waffen SS as a tank gunner where he brought about accusations of betrayal and hypocrisy.

He had been wounded after serving for six months and he was captured by the U.S. in a military hospital, claiming to have never fired a shot. But it was his belief that what kept him from committing war crimes was not about merit, but more about circumstance.

"If I had been born three or four years earlier I would, surely, have seen myself caught up in those crimes," Grass was quoted as saying.

As reported by NPR, Grass was 6 years old when the Nazis took over his city and four years later he joined The Hitler Youth Movement.

"It was marvelous for [a] 10-years-old boy to go with this group," Grass told WHYY's "Fresh Air" in 1992. "There was a tent, and with a flag, and playing Boy Scouts like this. It wasn't political at all in the beginning. It became more and more political. It was really successful propaganda done by the Nazis."

Grass's international legacy has been noted by his domestic statesmen as described in The Guardian. In tribute to Grass, German President Joachim Gauck said, "Günter Grass moved, enthralled and made the people of our country think with his literature and his art."

Additionally, German chancellor Angela Merkel remarked that Grass "accompanied and shaped Germany's post-war history with his artistic, social and political engagement."