Uruguay is going to melt down a bronze Nazi eagle into a dove of peace: “It’s like turning Auschwitz into a nudist camp” | Abroad

The two-metre-long, 350-kilogram sculpture graced the stern of the Admiral Graf Spee, one of the largest and most modern warships of the Third Reich at the time.

Uruguayan artist Pablo Atchugarry has been chosen to create the bronze dove of peace, due for delivery in November. “The idea is to transform a symbol of hatred, war and cruelty into a symbol of peace. I feel very honored and with a lot of responsibility to do this job,” he said.

The artist will first carve the statue of about 1.70 meters long from three blocks of Italian marble. Based on this, a mold will be made into which the bronze of the Nazi eagle will be poured. According to Uruguayan President Luis Lacalle Pou, it is not yet clear where the dove of peace will be placed. One of the possible locations is a coastal spot in the department of Maldonado, on the border of the Rio de la Plata and the Atlantic Ocean.

However, the president’s plan can count on considerable criticism according to various media in Uruguay. Former MP Aníbal Gloodtdofsky calls it a “banal” plan by the president. “As if you turn Auschwitz into a nudist camp,” he writes on Twitter. “The Nazi eagle is the legacy of human tragedy. There is no middle ground: it is either preserved for future generations or destroyed.

Writer Claudio Invernizzi also does not like the melting down: “Transforming a bird does not transform humanity, it disguises it. And erasing the symbolism of terror encourages terror. What was an eagle must remain an eagle.”

The fact that the Nazi eagle ended up in Uruguayan waters at all has to do with the first real naval battle of World War II. It took place on the Rio de la Plata, a wide river between Uruguay and Argentina.

The Graf Spee was spotted there on December 13, 1939 by a British fleet, and so began the ‘Battle of the River Plate’. The ship was targeted by three British cruisers and suffered so much damage that the ship had to be repaired. That is why captain Hans Langsdorff guided the boat to the port of Montevideo, capital of neutral Uruguay.

There the ship was given several days to carry out repairs. And while British diplomats tried to convince the local authorities to have the ship removed from the harbor as quickly as possible, the British cruisers took up positions off the coast of Montevideo.

Surrounded by the British, Captain Langsdorff saw no other way out on December 17 than to sink the warship itself to prevent the high-tech ship from falling into British hands.

For decades, the Graf Spee was therefore just outside the busy port of Montevideo, to the chagrin of the port authority. Private investors began salvaging the ship in 2004 with government support. In addition, the controversial eagle resurfaced in 2006.

For a short time, the eagle – holding a swastika in its claws – was exhibited in the Uruguayan capital. But after protests from the German government and the Jewish community in Uruguay, the statue was put away in a box, much to the dismay of the private investors who wanted to sell it.

After years of legal wrangling, a judge ruled a few months ago that the Uruguayan government is the rightful owner of the eagle, and could therefore decide on the fate of the eagle.