Salt Lake Telegram | 1939-12-18 | Page 2 | Hitler Gave Order to Captain to Blow up Trapped Warship

Hitler Gave Order"toCaptaiir rBIowUj5nrrapp"e"d"Warsh By PIERRE J. HI HS BERLIN, Dec. 18 (INS) Chancellor Chan-cellor Hitler personally gave the order to Captain Hans Langsdorff of the Admiral Graf Spee to blow up his ship rather than face the guns of a waiting allied fleet or submit it to Internment by Uruguay. Uru-guay. This announcement was published pub-lished prominently by German newspapers today, which said the fuehrer transmitted his orders to Captain Langsdorff following the failure of Uruguay to grant the the falling darkness." It added that thousands of persons per-sons watching the vessel's departure, depar-ture, "prayed for the lives of fhe German sailors still on board the vessel." During the few hours preceding the Graf Spee's departure, said this account, the greater part of her crew had been taken aboard the German freighter Tacoma. The launches effecting this transfer, said the German radio, were "decorated with flowers" and the "crowd again and again cheered Germany and the brave crew of the Admiral Graf Spee." "It was generally believed," the announcer told his listeners, "that the Graf Spee would sink herself close to the coast Immediately after leaving fhe harbor so as not to become the prey of British warships war-ships with a combined gun power 20 times that of the Graf Spee, which were waiting like a pack of ferocious hounds off the La Plata estuary, so that the ship might escape es-cape capture, destruction by the enemy or Internment." Graf Spee sufficient time in Montevideo Mon-tevideo harbor to effect repairs. The press stressed this point after aft-er the Berlin radio broadcast this announcement : "It is learned that It Is mot Impossible Im-possible that the German government govern-ment may lodge a sharp protest with the Uruguayan government because of the letter's attitude." There was no doubt that German officials were aroused by Uruguay's Uru-guay's refusal to permit the pocket battleship to remain at Montevideo Monte-video beyond yesterday afternoon following Its dash into the harbor last week after a running battle with three British cruisers. Earlier, broadcasting a report from Montevideo, the German wireless wire-less had reported that the Admiral Graf Spee left its moorings last evening and "slowly steamed out of the harbor of Montevideo Into