Uruguay appeals ruling that forces it to sell the Nazi eagle of the Graf Spee

“The appeal was filed this week”confirmed from the Ministry of Defense in reference to the cassation before the Supreme Court of Justice (SCJ), a last attempt to revoke the decision of the Uruguayan Justice, which last December ratified in second instance a 2019 ruling that obliged the State to sell the bronze eagle.

The sculpture of more than 300 kilos and two meters high perched on a swastika was on the stern of the Admiral Graf Spee, the main ship of the first sea battle between Germany and England at the dawn of the Second World War.

Both the eagle and a rangefinder were recovered in 2006 by a rescue team that two years earlier had signed a contract with the National Naval Prefecture, which established that 50% of the sale of the objects found in the search for the sunken ship would go to the public treasury and the other half would go to the rescuers who financed the operation.

Faced with delays in the sale, the permit holders – the brothers Alfredo and Felipe Etchegaray, and the diver Héctor Bado, who died in 2017 – presented a lawsuit against the Uruguayan State for breach of contract.

In 2019, the Uruguayan Justice ordered the “onerous alienation” of the eagle and the rangefinder, a ruling that was confirmed in the second instance last December.

Now, the State will present a final appeal before the SCJin a final attempt to overturn the decision, instance that can extend the litigation for several more months.

After clashing with British ships in the South Atlantic and taking refuge in front of Montevideo Bay, the Graf Spee was sunk on December 17, 1939 by its own captain to prevent it from falling into enemy hands.

Since its rescue in 2006, the The eagle is guarded in a military facility on the Cerro de Montevideo. Its possible sale generates resentments in the German government, which he fears that the sculpture could be used to glorify Nazism.

AFP