Relics

The Philadelphia Inquirer ran a Washington Post article today about an unusual political and historical problem. Here's the article (sorry, there may be a paywall). Apparently divers and salvage experts brought an artifact from a sunken German cruiser to the surface. It's a bronze eagle from the Graf Spee, a warship scuttled in the river near Montevideo in 1939. The eagle holds a swastika in its talons. And the Uruguayan government doesn't know what to do with it. 

The article talks about one idea I love. Melt it down and turn it into a hopeful work of art. A dove, namely. Do that! Turn that sword into a plowshare. I'd also go for the idea of disintegrating it through explosion. Yes, I'm okay with that too. 

The Uruguayan government is facing a lot of pressure from groups arguing that history, even history of evil things must be preserved. And many of these groups are quite well-meaning. There's a tension, though, with presenting and interpreting such history. And even when it's done well, the relics can still become historical pornography, attracting some would-be pilgrims who celebrate Naziism rather than revile it. 

By the way, I'm not suggesting museums properly and wisely interpreting Nazi relics should shut down such exhibits. I am suggesting that this relic doesn't need to be added to the collection. Rather, I wish it had never been unearthed at all. The ship's final resting place was the appropriate place for this relic. A token symbol of Naziism slowly disintegrating at the bottom of a river, affixed to a ship sent out to harass Allied shipping that couldn't even survive the first calendar year of the war before it was forced into hiding and then sunk. 

Dwight Eisenhower, when a general commanding troops in Europe, ordered that any memorials or runes left behind by retreating troops be destroyed. He would allow no honorifics to the evil cause of Naziism. That approach would have served us well here by leaving the eagle in the deep. 

Though I'm a historian, I typically find myself uneasy at fortune-hunting. I want relics to be exhibits, not collectibles. I resist putting a dollar value on items of historical importance. And then I worry about the risks, legal, monetary, physical and otherwise involved in retrieving such items. 

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The historian in me is glad I came across this story. It reminds me of some interesting side-stories that say a great deal related to World War II. One of those side-stories regards the sinking of that ship itself. Very early in the war, Germany sent this state-of-the-art ship out to harass Allied shipping. The mission didn't go well. Allied ships engaged the Graf Spee, dealt it heavy damage, and forced it into a neutral harbor in Uruguay. Eventually its captain realized he had to scuttle it. This episode is a symbol that as early as 1939 Germany lacked a navy sufficient to project its power in such a way to win a war against Britain and France. It had to hope that they both would give up. 

Uruguay's neutrality is also an interesting side-story. Latin America's alignment with the Allies wasn't a given. Uruguay, Brazil, and Argentina were home to many Europeans of German and Italian lineage. Might they cast their lot with the Axis? Might they be neutral in the sense that Franco's Spain was neutral. There was a conference in 1940 (in Havana) in which U.S. officials met with Axis diplomats warning them clearly that interference in the Americas would lead America to declare war. It was a world war in the literal sense. Latin America's role in it was an interesting piece of the puzzle. 

And, of course, the migrations after the war fascinate me as well. The article mentioned that Uruguay features a very large Jewish population. Many of them resulted from migrations that occurred after World War II. Australia, too, saw significant migration after World War II (not necessarily Jewish, but significant). Americans probably don't know well enough the major movement of people spurred by World War II's devastation and political sentiment. There is more that is worth reading about.