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Battleship Suicide: A Nazi Captain Was Tricked Into Killing His Warship
The loss of the Graf Spee was a blow to the prestige of Hitler s small but expensive navy.
Here s What You Need to Remember:
Just before he put the gun to his head and pulled the trigger, the German officer penned a final note. For a captain with a sense of honor, it goes without saying that his personal fate cannot be separated from that of his ship, wrote Hans Langsdorff on December 19, 1939, in a hotel room in Buenos Aires. Langsdorff finished his letter to the Nazi ambassador to Argentina, lay down on a German battle flag, and shot himself.