The court case of the Nazi eagle of the Graf Spee ship, sunk in December 1939 off the coast of Montevideo, could be clarified in August, when the Uruguayan State chooses to appeal the 2019 ruling or reach a conciliation with the plaintiffs.
The Government of Luis Lacalle Pou, which took office on March 1, requested two extensions for that decision due to the declaration of a health emergency due to COVID-19, and now there is a commitment before Justice "for August, in the sense of last date for an eventual conciliation,” the Minister of National Defense, Javier García, told Efe.
In June 2019, the Court decided in the first instance to "arrange and carry out the onerous sale and distribution of the proceeds from the sale of the rescued rangefinder and eagle" 50% for the State and 50% for the plaintiffs, the Alfredo brothers. and Felipe Etchegaray and the diver Héctor Bado, who died in 2017.
The Etchegaray brothers signed a rescue contract in 2004, the year in which they managed to remove the ship's rangefinder - today exhibited in the facilities of the port of Montevideo - and, two years later, the rescue team discovered the eagle on the bow, more than 300 kilos and with a swastika in the lower area.
The head of Defense ruled out that there is an "imminent auction" of the eagle and acknowledged that his ministry is still carrying out a "legal analysis of the issue."
The exhibition of the eagle was a source of controversy in Uruguay due to a possible exaltation of Nazism and the figure ended up locked up in the Cerro Fortress, a military dependency of the Uruguayan State, where it remains "in custody," the minister clarified.
García assured that, whatever the final destination of the piece, "the Uruguayan State will guarantee that this symbol, which represents a part of the darkest history and the worst history of humanity, does not serve for publicity or Nazi worship." .
The Simon Wiesenthal Center, an institution dedicated to documenting the Jewish Holocaust, issued a statement in which its director for Latin America, Ariel Gelblung, indicated, given "the imminent auction" of the eagle, that "potential buyers should be warned not to If the objects are given the (pedagogical) warning destination, the auction must be considered void.
García insisted on the "strict guarantee" that the Uruguayan State will ensure that this piece "is not used by neo-Nazi organizations."
For his part, businessman Alfredo Etchegaray agreed with the minister that "all parties" agree "to guarantee the academic destiny of the piece," he said.
"The only potential sensitivity is resolved because the interested parties have to prequalify, they have to be States, academic institutions, museums or a combination of individuals," he argued.
The Admiral Graf Spee was the pride of Nazi Germany's navy and, during the first months of World War II, it spread panic in the South Atlantic. But in December 1939 she was surprised in the Río de la Plata by British ships and she had to take refuge in Montevideo, where her captain, Hans Langsdorff, sank her. EFE