Veterans of Graf Spee battle mark 50 years

Press, 19 December 1989, Page 31

Veterans of Graf Spee battle mark 50 years

By

DEBORAH CHARLES

NZPA-Reuterßuenos Aires Old enemies of World War II became new friends when veterans of the Battle of the River Plate met 50 years later to celebrate peace. They came from West Germany, Uruguay, Britain, New Zealand and Argentina to commemorate the engagement of December 13 to 17, 1939. Talking in a mixture of German, English and Spanish, many former crew members of the German battleship Admiral Graf Spee were eager to reminisce about the battle against the British, which began on December 13 and ended four days later when the ship was scuttled off the Uruguayan coast. The 10,000-ton pocket battleship with a crew of 1100 became a nightmare for the British Navy after sinking nine British merchant ships in the first 100 days of the war, as it roamed the Atlantic Ocean from Brazil to the African coast.

"We had been hunting down British merchant ships throughout the South Atlantic, and captured and sank nine before we were found,” said a former gunnery sergeant, Alfred Tetzner.

The Graf Spee was sometimes camouflaged to look like an Allied ship. The Graf Spee was finally cornered in the River Plate estuary by three light cruisers from the British fleet, the Exeter, the Ajax and the New Zealand-flagged Achilles.

Although the German battleship hit the Exeter almost immediately, the three cruisers, with smaller guns than the Graf Spee, fought valiantly throughout the day. When darkness fell the Graf Spee, which had also sustained damage, made for the neutral port of Montevideo for repairs.

The Uruguayan Government granted the Graf Spee 72 hours in port, during which the British summoned reinforcements. Believing that he faced a flotilla of British warships waiting offshore, Captain Hans Langsdorff reported the situation to Berlin and after receiving a reply, sailed the ship down the river where it was abandoned and blown

up. British naval historians say that, in fact, the ships steaming for the Plate could not have arrived before December 19 and the Germans were misled by false intelligence. “After talking to the Reich high command, the captain said we would scuttle the ship. A skeleton crew stayed behind to set the explosives, and left the ship before it blew,” said Mr Tetzner, President of the Argentine branch of the Graf Spee Association. British and German historians agree that Captain Langsdorff did not want to scuttle the ship. The German captain stood at salute as it blew up, with tears rolling down his cheeks, a British naval historian has written. Argentine tugboats

brought the German crew to Buenos Aires, where, after making sure his men would be treated well, Captain Langsdorff shot himself in his room in the Argentine Naval Arsenal on December 20, 1939. “He (Langsdorff) was found lying in a pool of blood, on the same flag that had been hoisted for the Graf Spee’s last trip. It was his way of going down with the ship,” said Friedrich Wilhelm Rasenack, chief gunnery officer and a close friend of the captain. Tales of the crew’s 4’/ 2 - year internment in different Argentine cities were told by the veterans and their wives at the reunion.

“We were treated very well by the Argentines and never felt like prisoners,” said Pau! Rink, who married an Argentine of German stock. “The guards allowed us great freedom, with five days off every two weeks,” said Mr Tetzner, who was interned on a small island off Buenos Aires with the officers and non-commissioned officers.

“However, many of us tried to escape,” he said, explaining how he dug a tunnel, swam 11 hours to Uruguayan waters and stowed away in a Spanish ship before being caught.

Others were more successful in attempts to return to the war. “It took me six months, but I managed to return to Germany and fight in the war again,” said Mr Rasenack, who escaped to

neighbouring Chile, sailed to Japan and finally crossed the Soviet Union to reach Germany. After the war the remaining Graf Spee crew were deported to Germany. About 500 eventually returned to Argentina, some because they had nothing left at home and others because they had married or found new lives here.

About 250 are still living among Argentina’s half-million German community, 200 of them active members of the Graf Spee Association. The fiftieth anniversary was celebrated by a visit of 68 former crew members who live in Germany. A total of about 200 German veterans and their families travelled on a month’s tour of Argentina and Uruguay, which included the inauguration of Admiral Graf Spee park in a north-western Argentine resort town and a visit to Captain Langsdorff’s grave outside Buenos Aires. About 10 British and New Zealand veterans travelled to Montevideo for a joint memorial service. ~ ■ The final event will be a reception on December 18, sponsored by the German Embassy in Buenos Aires. Officials from West Germany and Britain are expected to attend. “I think this is a great reunion. I am seeing people I haven’t seen for 50 years. Most importantly, it reminds us that old enemies are now new friends,” Mr Rink said.