When I was 12 I used to play football in a kid's team. Seven-a-side, you know what it is. We made a travel to Uruguay to play some games there and we stayed in the houses of the uruguayan players, kind of interchange thing, they did the same when they came to our country. My father and I were the last ones to find accomodation, he was the coach and I was the captain of the team, we had the task to find a house for every player. And then some tall, blonde, moustached man came in and invited us to stay at his home. His name was Rolf Haag Claas, he was the chauffeur of the West Germany ambassador in Montevideo and his father was a helper in the kitchen of the Graf Spee. The old man had decided to stay in Uruguay, got married and had kids. Being kind of a scholar of WW2 myself we talked a lot about the war and the River Plate in the days that we stayed there but never met Rolf's father, can't remember why.
I recently saw a History Channel documentary about that battle and this post brought a lot of memories of that trip and, of course, of my father, God bless his soul.
