Essay: The story of German ship Graf Spee’s Nazi eagle Uruguay will have to sell to pay two brothers

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The eagle, once part of the bow of WWII warship Admiral Graf Spee, has made headlines due to a legal dispute between the Uruguayan State and those who brought it back to surface.

THE EVENTS

Brothers Felipe and Alfredo Etchegaray claim that 15 years ago, after conducting the rescue operation to recover it from the water, Uruguay failed to comply with its part and did not pay the agreed amount for the job.

The two had long wanted to reach the ship and uncover its “treasures.” The Admiral Graf Spee, the ship bearing the eagle, was the pride of the Nazi German navy during the first months of World War II. Her technology was state-of-the-art for the time, she possessed one of the most accurate rangefinders to measure distances at sea, weighing 27 tons, and ensured precision artillery.

It is said to have caused panic in the South Atlantic. Until December 13, 1939, when it was surprised in the River Plate by British ships and was forced to take refuge in Montevideo.

According to a report in the Montevideo newspaper El País, over 100 men had died on both sides in the battle (68 Allied men and 36 Germans).

Once on the Uruguayan coast, pursued by two British ships, she continued to exchange fire with the British.

Its captain, Hans Langsdorff, asked for technical assistance to repair the battleship, but the Uruguayan government refused. Then, he ordered the coffins of the fallen in the battle to be unloaded and decided to sink the ship so that the German technology would not fall into the hands of the then enemy. The following day he committed suicide in a Buenos Aires hotel.

Some 200 crew returned to Germany and about 1,000 decided to stay and live in Uruguay and Argentina.

Thus, the existence of the ship off the coast of Uruguay was always public knowledge. Many considered rescuing it, due to its historical significance, but abandoned the idea due to the high costs of such a mission, difficult as it would involve diving to great depths to remove very heavy elements, as well as taking several steps for the Uruguayan government to allow such an exploration.

“This incident has historical relevance for being the first sea battle in the Second World War, the last one in which battleships took part, and also the only conflict that took place in this part of the world during the war,” said Alfredo Etchegaray to Montevideo Portal this year.

THE START OF THE EAGLE RESCUE PROJECT

The brothers signed a recovery contract in 2004 with the State of Uruguay and together with diver Héctor Bado managed to remove the telemeter from the ship. Two years later, in 2006, they found the eagle on the bow and, after a difficult task, managed to extract it from the sea.

Since then, a series of filings have been made before the Uruguayan courts for the State to fulfill its part of the contract and pay the brothers what had been agreed.

During this time, Bado died in 2017, the telemeter was exhibited in the facilities of the port of Montevideo and as the eagle’s display could be seen as a potential praise to Nazism, the piece was deposited in the Fortaleza del Cerro, a military facility of the Uruguayan State, where it is still “under custody.”

In June 2019, a first instance Court ruled that the eagle be sold, that is, “to arrange and conduct the sale of the rescued telemeter and eagle and distribute its proceeds” with 50% for the State and 50% for the brothers and diver Héctor Bado, already deceased by that time. But in June last year, amidst the health emergency triggered by the coronavirus pandemic, the State chose to appeal the ruling and set aside the prospect of settling with the plaintiffs.

Amid the court ruling, the German government tried to prevent the eagle from being sold on the market and falling into the hands of Nazi worshippers. For the Berlin government, the eagle should ideally end up in a museum.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center, an institution dedicated to documenting the Jewish Holocaust, issued a statement in July last year where its Latin American director Ariel Gelblung stated that “in light of the imminent auction” of the eagle, “potential buyers should be advised that should the objects not be assigned an (educational) purpose, the auction should be considered null and void.”

THE COURT RULING

The Uruguayan government at the time requested two extensions due to the declaration of a health emergency. Yesterday, a second instance ruling issued by the 4th Civil Appellate Court, case file 2-54239/2017, confirmed the 2019 ruling, as published today by the Uruguayan media.

Thus, the Uruguayan State was sentenced to sell the eagle and the telemeter and share the profit with the Etchegaray brothers.

“We have been litigating with the State for many years, after securing the relevant permits for the search and rescue of items from the German ship, which took part in the battle of the River Plate against three English ships,” Alfredo Etchegaray said.

Carlos Rodríguez Arralde, the brothers’ lawyer, said: “We obtained, as we expected, the confirmation of the first instance sentence, which granted the Etchegaray brothers’ claim to sentence the Uruguayan State to comply with the Rescue Contract.”

Although the State has the right to lodge an appeal before the Supreme Court of Justice against the ruling, such an appeal will not prevent the ruling from being complied with.

“If this does not occur voluntarily, in order to avoid any delays by the State in complying with the sentence, we could eventually request the Court to impose economic sanctions (fines) on the State, until it complies with the ruling,” Arralde explained.

While the eagle remains in a warehouse and a response from the Uruguayan government is awaited, some assure that it will remain in the spotlight given the concern of several organizations that the piece should not fall into the hands of neo-Nazi groups.

With information form La Nacion