Uruguay to melt Nazi bronze eagle, recast it as peace dove

[Judi Lynn]

By AFP
Published June 16, 2023



Uruguay's Supreme Court has ruled the eagle was the property of the state - Copyright ALFREDO ETCHEGARAY/AFP/File HO

Uruguay will melt down a bronze eagle found on a sunken World War II-era German destroyer off its coast 13 years ago, and recast it as a dove of peace, the South American country’s president said Friday.

The 350-kilogram (770-pound) “symbol of violence and war” will be turned into a “symbol of peace and union,” President Luis Lacalle Pou told journalists in the capital Montevideo.

The two-meter (6.5-foot)-tall bird with a Nazi swastika gripped in its talons adorned the stern of the Admiral Graf Spee, a battleship involved in one of the first naval skirmishes of World War II.

The Graf Spee’s captain, Hans Langsdorff, scuttled the battleship — one of the Third Reich’s largest — on December 17, 1939 following the Battle of the River Plate.

Read more: https://www.digitaljournal.com/world/uruguay-to-melt-nazi-bronze-eagle-recast-it-as-peace-dove/article

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Why is Ecuador shown instead of Uruguay on the map?

[Judi Lynn]

3. Whoa! I drifted away, looked for Ecuador, instead! Don't ask me why! Here's Uruguay!

I'm really glad you spotted that so quickly. I never even suspected I totally blew it! Wow.

Thank you for pointing it out, I really needed that help!

(Even by a different ocean, as well!)

[EYESORE 9001]

4. The Graf Spee is perhaps the first German WW II naval vessel I read about

I wish I could participate in the casting of this metal. It combines two of my favorite things to do: making things from molten metal and turning objects of hate into objects of peace.

[Mister Ed]

5. The article calls the Graf Spee both a destroyer and a battleship.

There's a great difference between the two. Graf Spee was a battleship, albeit a rather compact battleship. She was built pre-war with a compact size in order to stay within the limitations of naval treaties then enforced. For that reason, she's often been informally called a "pocket battleship".

[Vogon_Glory]

6. Calling a pocket battleship a destroyer? Another shining example of

Breathless, lazy-a$$ so-called journalism by people who don’t bother to do their research before rushing their articles to print. The reporter or or the editor should have caught that mistake before it went to print or was uploaded to the Net.