The future of a bronze eagle which once adorned the Nazi-era battleship Admiral Graf Spee remains uncertain after plans to melt it down were scrapped.
Treasure hunters raised the eagle in 2006 off the coast of Uruguay, where the Graf Spee had been scuttled in 1939 to stop it falling into enemy hands.
A court ruled last year that it belonged to the Uruguayan state, in whose waters it was found.
The country’s president had proposed turning it into a sculpture of a dove.
President Luis Lacalle Pou had announced the plan to melt down the bronze eagle, which weighs 350kg, on Friday.
The eagle, which has a wingspan of 2.8m and is 2m high, clutches a large swastika.
It had been lying on the bottom of the River Plate since 1939, when the captain of the Admiral Graf Spee had scuttled her soon after the first major naval battle of the Second World War. He feared the ship could reveal valuable German secrets if seized by the British.
The Graf Spee had been a great threat to the Allied forces in the war, having sunk eight merchant ships between the outbreak of war in September 1939 and its scuttling in December of that year.
“It occurred to us that this symbol of war could undergo a transformation into a symbol of peace or union, like a dove,” the president had said.
A Uruguayan sculptor, Pablo Atchugarry, had been commissioned to recast the eagle.
But just two days later, President Lacalle Pou announced that the idea had been shelved.
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