Battle on the River Plate as salvage resuscitates history

An intricate diplomatic minuet surrounds the salvage of the Graf Spee.

RIO DE JANEIRO - Gingerly, and with the utmost delicacy, bits from the Graf Spee - the German pocket battleship whose captain was fooled into scuttling her in Uruguayan waters in December 1939 - are being salvaged in the shallow waters of the River Plate.

Divers, blinded by muddy waters off the Uruguayan capital, Montevideo, in February recovered the ship's emblem, a 350kg bronze eagle grasping a Third Reich swastika. But an intricate diplomatic minuet surrounds the salvage. When the emblem was first shown, the swastika was carefully masked.

No government official in Uruguay, and certainly none in Germany, wants to be saddled with the reputation of restoring an icon of Hitler's navy in a part of the world where the Fuhrer had no little popularity, some of which survives. At the same time the salvage company wants a return on the money it has spent, and authorities in Montevideo see relics from the 14,515-tonne vessel as the focus of a new attraction in a small country which relies on tourism cash from its giant neighbours Brazil and Argentina.

Uruguay's centre-left Government said relics from the vessel should be sold to the highest bidder. Its parliamentarians have demanded that the wreck be declared a piece of national heritage. German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Government has gently asked the Uruguayans not to sell pieces or allow them to go abroad. She certainly doesn't want them back.

But whose is the wreck? The Germans claim it is still theirs. But some say that a British agent bought it from the German Government as scrap in 1940. Now, the Uruguayan Government has claimed it.

"The surviving members of the crew and the Jewish lobby do not want the wreck touched," said Joseph Gilbey, author of two books on the vessel.

Alfredo Etchegaray, the Uruguayan businessman who is leading the salvage effort, said he and his partners had spent around $11 million so far.

He said he needed a total of $46.5 million if the whole vessel was to be raised.

Hector Bado, Etchegaray's leading diver, said if the Government did not want the eagle to leave Uruguay it should buy it from those who found it: "We've got it up for sale."

The sinking of the Graf Spee, commanded by Captain Hans Langsdorff, was the Royal Navy's first big victory in World War II. The German battleship had sunk nine ships in the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean within a few months of the outbreak of war.

Off the River Plate, where he was hoping for easy new kills, Langsdorff was being shadowed by Commodore Henry Harwood, commanding a task force of the heavy cruiser Exeter and the light cruiser Ajax, backed up by Achilles of the New Zealand division of the Royal Navy.

The German forced the Exeter to retire but then lost his nerve, and ran for shelter and to bury his dead in the Uruguayan capital, where he was taken in by false reports circulated by British diplomats that an armada awaited him if he put to sea again.

The British persuaded the Uruguayan Government that Langsdorff could not be sheltered indefinitely.

Conscious that he could not make it back to Germany, he put ashore most of his crew. In front of 250,000 people watching on the Montevideo seafront, he sailed out of Uruguayan waters just after 6pm on Sunday, December 17, two hours before his vessel faced internment by Uruguay.

Using explosives he scuttled the Graf Spee 4.8km out. After burning for three days at anchor, she settled in 7.5m of water, her stern blown off and the 272-tonne aft turret lying in the mud nearby. Langsdorff shot himself two days later in Buenos Aires.

ADMIRAL GRAF SPEE

* German pocket battleship

* Launched: June 30, 1934

* Scuttled: December 17, 1939

* Length: 186m

* Speed: 28.5 knots (53 km/h)

* Range: 8900 nautical miles at 20 knots

* Crew: 1150

- INDEPENDENT