When the world gets closer.

We help you see farther.

Sign up to our expressly international daily newsletter.

Already a subscriber? Log in .

You've reached your limit of one free article.

Get unlimited access to Worldcrunch

You can cancel anytime .

SUBSCRIBERS BENEFITS

Exclusive International news coverage

Ad-free experience NEW

Weekly digital Magazine NEW

9 daily & weekly Newsletters

Access to Worldcrunch archives

Free trial

30-days free access, then $2.90
per month.

Annual Access BEST VALUE

$19.90 per year, save $14.90 compared to monthly billing.save $14.90.

Subscribe to Worldcrunch
Society

Argentine Millionaire To Buy And "Pulverize" Nazi Warship Artifact

Recovered in 2006 off the Uruguayan coast, the the Swastika-laden crest of the warship Admiral Graf Spee risked becoming a prized collection item in the growing market of Nazi artifacts.

Argentine Millionaire To Buy And "Pulverize" Nazi Warship Artifact

The recovered Nazi artifact

Clarin

An Argentine businessman has vowed to buy the eagle and swastika crest of a German warship that sank in 1939 in Uruguay, and was recovered in 2006, in order to "blow it to smithereens" and prevent it becoming a fetish for Nazi sympathizers.

The Admiral Graf Spee warship, which been disrupting Allied shipping in the early months of World War II, was damaged in fighting and then scuttled in Montevideo's harbor on the orders of its captain. Its wreck was recovered in 2006, and a Uruguayan court has ordered it sold to repay the two brothers who financed the operation.


But 64-year-old Daniel Sielecky, an Argentine boating aficionado in Punta del Este, a resort near Montevideo, said he would buy the "Nazi symbol," to "immediately blow it into a thousand pieces." Any chunks left, he told the Uruguayan daily Correo de Punta del Este, "will be pulverized. There will be nothing left."

The ship's crest, which two meters high, 2.8 meters wide and weighs 300 kilograms, resurfaced in the operation paid for by brothers Felipe and Alfredo Etchegaray, who took legal action to ensure Uruguay would compensate them.

The crest has since caused unease and was separately offered to a German war museum and the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Israel. The Simon Wiesenthal Center, which investigates Holocaust crimes, warned in 2020 that the crest must only be sold for display for "teaching" purposes.

But for Sielecky, reports Buenos Aires daily Clarin, even this is a risk, and he said he will simply opt for the object's elimination.

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

Ideas

Look At This Crap! The "Enshittification" Theory Of Why The Internet Is Broken

The term was coined by journalist Cory Doctorow to explain the fatal drift of major Internet platforms: if they were ever useful and user-friendly, they will inevitably end up being odious.

A photo of hands holding onto a smartphone

A person holding their smartphone

Gilles Lambert/ZUMA
Manuel Ligero

-Analysis-

The universe tends toward chaos. Ultimately, everything degenerates. These immutable laws are even more true of the Internet.

In the case of media platforms, everything you once thought was a good service will, sooner or later, disgust you. This trend has been given a name: enshittification. The term was coined by Canadian blogger and journalist Cory Doctorow to explain the inevitable drift of technological giants toward... well.

The explanation is in line with the most basic tenets of Marxism. All digital companies have investors (essentially the bourgeoisie, people who don't perform any work and take the lion's share of the profits), and these investors want to see the percentage of their gains grow year after year. This pushes companies to make decisions that affect the service they provide to their customers. Although they don't do it unwillingly, quite the opposite.

For the latest news & views from every corner of the world, Worldcrunch Today is the only truly international newsletter. Sign up here.

Annoying customers is just another part of the business plan. Look at Netflix, for example. The streaming giant has long been riddling how to monetize shared Netflix accounts. Option 1: adding a premium option to its regular price. Next, it asked for verification through text messages. After that, it considered raising the total subscription price. It also mulled adding advertising to the mix, and so on. These endless maneuvers irritated its audience, even as the company has been unable to decide which way it wants to go. So, slowly but surely, we see it drifting toward enshittification.

Keep reading...Show less

The latest