"Voluntary Elimination"

Why did Adolf Hitler change the Admiral Graf Spee from a gallant fighting ship into a miserable scuttleship? Naval men pondered many theories last week, as the Spee's semi-submerged hulk still smoked in the Plata estuary and her 1,039 officers & men were interned at Buenos Aires and Montevideo, four of them under arrest in the latter capital, pending an investigation to see if the Spee's scuttling was criminal.

German defeatism was a blanket answer. Mustard-gas shells aboard the Spee, discovery of which would have created a stench in neutral noses, was the height of British suspicion. Fear that Uruguay or Argentina might become an ally, and turn the interned Spee against Germany, constituted a political answer (see p. 18). None of these answers was approved by non-Nazi naval men, whose code demands that a ship of war shall continue fighting just as long as she can do some damage to the enemy.

An explanation more depressing than any to the German cause was published by El Dia of Montevideo: that Britain's lighter cruisers actually rendered Germany's vaunted sea terror harmless. Said El Dia, which may well have had access to the official Uruguayan commission that examined Spee: "We are authoritatively able to give assurance that the Graf Spee's fighting capacity was almost totally nullified in the battle. Its control tower had been damaged so that its artillery could not be managed. Its ammunition lifter had been paralyzed and heavy shells had to be carried on the shoulders of sailors. Therefore, when Captain Langsdorff ordered it to Montevideo, the ship was practically out of fighting condition."

What then of the Spee's commander? Was he a coward? El Dia said his Government forced him to protest that Spee was only unfit for sea, not unfit for battle. But sharp tongues in Buenos Aires flung painful taunts at wiry little Captain Hans Langsdorff, 45, after he came ashore so jauntily with his men, to be lionized by the city's German colony.

The Spee's officers were not deprived of their swords and pistols before being quartered at the Immigrants' Hotel (Argentina's Ellis Island), close to the naval arsenal grounds. They relaxed happily while German Ambassador Baron Edmund von Thermann sought to have the Spee's company adjudged survivors of a wrecked ship, not subject to internment.

When the authorities declared him and his men prisoners for the war's duration, Langsdorff's spirit seemed to break. He visited his men in their barracks, addressed them quietly in three groups. That evening he called all his officers around him, talked with them for three hours. He shook hands all around before retiring. He asked not to be disturbed that night, sat up late writing letters to his wife, parents and the Ambassador. His fellow officers did not need to be told what his aide found next morning: Langsdorff dead, with a bullet from his own pistol through his forehead.

The German Embassy made a formal announcement: "The commander of the glorious battleship Admiral Graf Spee sacrificed his own life last night for the Fatherland, eliminating himself voluntarily. . . . From the first moment he made up his mind to share the fate of his magnificent ship. . . ." In Berlin, the German Admiralty explained: ". . . After bringing his crew to safety, he viewed his work as finished and followed his ship. The Admiralty understands and honors this step. Captain Langsdorff as a fighter fulfilled the expectations put upon him by his Fuehrer, the German people and his Navy."

But only his own letters could reveal whether Hans Langsdorff understood and honored the end which Adolf Hitler decreed for his ship, and thus for him. And last Week those letters were not made public.

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