The President of Uruguay, Luis Lacalle Pou, announced this Sunday the abandonment of the project to convert the bronze eagle with Nazi symbology that adorned the German battleship into a dove of peace. “Admiral Graf Spee”, sunk in Uruguayan waters in 1939 at the dawn of World War II.
The Uruguayan president had announced that the objective of the project was to transform “a symbol of violence” like the Nazi imperial eagle “into a symbol of peace.” In this way, it was intended to melt the eagle and the swastika and transform the bronze into a dove of peace.
“There is an overwhelming majority that does not share this decision, and if you want to generate peace, the first thing you have to do is generate unity. Clearly this has not generated it”explained the president from the city of Melo, where he had traveled to pay tribute to a local figure.
“Unfortunately, I continue to maintain that it is a good idea but it is up to a president to listen and represent,” he said. Lacalle For.
The imposing bronze eagle with outstretched wings and a swastika in its claws, 2.8 meters long by 2 meters high and weighing 350 kilos, was recovered in 2006 in the Río de la Plata by private rescuers.
After being announced on Friday, the initiative that it was going to be in the hands of the Uruguayan sculptor Pablo Atchugarrywas harshly criticized in different spheres, from the cultural to the political, even within the government coalition itself: “It is an idea that we had many years ago, precisely from a symbol of violence, of war, to transform it into a symbol of peace and union”, the president had said when announcing his project.
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The sculptor told the Uruguayan newspaper The country that he wanted to “transform a symbol of war and horror into a symbol of peace, honorarily and without cost to the State.” But he added that “a symbol of peace and union cannot be born from discord.”
The “Admiral Graf Spee” starred together with the British cruisers “Exeter” and “Ajax” and the New Zealand “Achilles” in the Battle of the Río de la Plata, one of the first naval clashes of World War II, which took place off the Uruguayan coast on December 13, 1939.
The ship, with 1,100 crew members, set sail in August 1939 from Germanya week before the start of World War II and on her way through the Atlantic Ocean, she sank nine British merchant ships carrying merchandise to supply mainly the United Kingdom.
The battleship reached the shores of the Río de la Plata in December 1939, within the framework of the Battle of the Río de la Plata, and reached the port of Montevideo with significant damage, after being cornered and attacked for an hour and a half by three british ships, Exeter, Ajax y Achilles.
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The Graf Spee was damaged and the captain Hans Langsdorff decided to go to Montevideo to repair it, despite the opinion against its officers. The Uruguayan government allowed him to dock no more than 72 hours, which expired at 8:00 p.m. on Sunday, December 17.
British spies spread the rumor that the Graf Spee was surrounded by English ships, and nearly 250,000 people crowded the Montevideo promenade, waiting to witness a live naval battle.
After several days of diplomatic negotiations between the German, British and Uruguayan governments, Captain Langsdorff ordered the destruction of the ship. A few days later he committed suicide for fear of being captured. by the British to extract information about the technology of the Graf Spee.
His body was found dressed in his dress uniform in a Buenos Aires hotel and wrapped with the combat flag of the Nazi army.
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“After a long struggle with my conscience I have come to the serious decision to sink (the Graf Spee) to prevent it from falling into enemy hands. I am convinced that, given the circumstances, this decision is the only possible one, after having led my ship to the Montevideo trap,” the farewell letter said.
The bronze Nazi eagle was recovered from the bottom of the Río de la Plata by the Uruguayan brothers Felipe and Alfredo Etchegaray in 2006 after two years of searching. During the expedition, he recovered the artillery rangefinder, weighing 27 tons, which is on display in the port of Montevideo, and the huge bronze sculpture of the eagle with the swastika.
Since then it was exhibited to the public for a month with the endorsement of the Central Israelite Committee of Uruguay until in 2014, when the Justice decided that the Nazi “treasure” belongs to the State. The eagle was kept in a wooden crate in the custody of the Uruguayan Armed Forces.
The dispute was only resolved at the end of 2022, when the Supreme Court of Justice confirmed that the piece was the property of the Uruguayan State.
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