The question remains why would it make a run for it?
It is not like they had a chance to alter outcome of the war on its own so its choices were really quite stark make for a neutral country the closest being Sweden and scuttling the ship or surrender it and go home.
Even had it managed to break out into the Atlantic then what, eventually it would have run out of fuel or most likely been sunk by aircraft before it could have reached a neutral South American country and even had it made it that far it only had same options that the Graf Spee had which was a few hours in port followed by scuttling charges.
Essentially even if you ignore the hopelessness of its cause it was logistically impossible for it to do anything but surrender, scuttle itself or both.
January 19th, 2015
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