Montevideo (EFE).- Uruguay will convert the bronze eagle of the Admiral Graf Spee ship -one of the most fearsome battleships of the Nazi Navy- into a dove that will represent a “symbol of peace and union”.
This measure was announced at a press conference by the president of the South American country, Luis Lacalle Pou. Who indicated that this decision was made after confirmation that the piece belongs to the Uruguayan State.
The eagle was extracted in 2006 after spending decades in the depths of the Río de la Plata. It was there that Captain Hans Langsdorff sank the ship due to the possibility of being taken prisoner and after a confrontation with the British ships Exeter, Ajax and Achilles.
From that moment, the eagle was in the custody of the Uruguayan Navy, while a lawsuit was carried out in which the Justice had to decide who was the owner of the piece, which was finally awarded to the Uruguayan State.
The eagle of the Admiral Graf Spee
During the press conference, Lacalle Pou indicated that more than three years ago it occurred to him that “this symbol of violence and war could undergo a virtuous transformation into a symbol of peace and union.” Already as president he proposed it to the sculptor Pablo Atchugarry.
“Pablo accepted immediately,” stressed the president. Who said that the only condition that the artist put to do it was that it had to be an honorary job.
Atchugarry, for his part, spoke about what the job will be and explained that it will have a “long and complicated” process.
“I decide to accept this challenge and I think that everything that can be done for peace is little. We have to have peace in our hearts, we have to imagine it and we have to propose it, ”she pointed out.
He said that he will first make a preparatory drawing and then travel to Italy to make a first marble model. And then another definitive one in the same material. The latter will be about 170 centimeters long.
Finally, it will travel to Uruguay, where a foundry will make the tracings to replicate it in bronze.
Finally, when asked about where the new piece will be exhibited, Lacalle Pou said that this “is not totally defined”, but that it could be in Punta del Este.
The bronze eagle with a swastika in its talons and its wings spread weighs more than 300 kilos and is 2 meters high.