28 August 2006
A private consortium in Uruguay has announced that it wants to auction off pieces of the former Nazi German vessel "Graf Spee", sunk more than 65 years off the coast of the Latin American country. The syndicate which recovered artifacts from the ship said the proceeds of the auction would be divided evenly with the government, as the law requires. But Uruguayan officials fear that an auction might lead neo-Nazi groups to acquire the artifacts. Commissioned in 1936, the "Graf Spee" was most modern battleship developed by Nazi Germany. When World War II broke out, the vessel was tracked down by a British-led battle group at the mouth of the Rio de la Plata in December 1939. In the battle that ensued, 113 crew members were killed. The "Graf Spee"'s captain navigated to the safety of the harbor of Uruguay's capital Montevideo, a neutral port, but when told he had to leave, he scuttled his vessel rather than let it fall into British hands. Shortly afterward, he committed suicide. In 2004, a group led by the Uruguayan PR executive Alfredo Etchegaray began recovering some parts of the ship. The recovery of the vessel's imposing tailpiece, an eagle sitting atop a swastika, in February and the announcement of plans to sell it ignited the current dispute.
