Following the cancellation of plans to melt down the bronze eagle that once adorned the Nazi battleship Admiral Graf Spee, its fate is still unknown.
The Graf Spee was scuttled off the coast of Uruguay in 1939 to prevent it from falling into enemy hands. In 2006, treasure hunters raised the eagle there.
It was determined by a court last year that the Uruguayan state, whose waters it was discovered, owned it.
The president of the nation had suggested transforming it into a dove sculpture.
The 350 kg (770 lb) bronze eagle was scheduled to be melted down on Friday, according to President Luis Lacalle Pou.
The 2m-tall eagle, which has a wingspan of 2.8m (9.2ft), is holding a sizable swastika.
It had lain on the River Plate's bottom since 1939, when the Admiral Graf Spee's captain scuttled her shortly after the Second World War's first significant naval engagement. If the ship was taken by the British, he feared it might reveal important German secrets.
Between the start of the war in September 1939 and the end of that year, the Graf Spee sank eight merchant ships, posing a serious threat to the Allied forces in World War II.
The president had said on Friday, "We had the thought that this symbol of war might change into a symbol of peace or union, like a dove.".
Recasting the eagle had been requested from Uruguayan sculptor Pablo Atchugarry.
Mr. Atchugarry agreed to take on the "challenge of turning hate, war, and destruction into a symbol of peace," as he put it.
President Lacalle Pou announced that the idea had been dropped just two days later.
"In the few hours [since the announcement], a vast majority of people have come forward who don't agree with the choice. This [idea] clearly failed to achieve unity, which is the first step in achieving peace, according to Mr. Lacalle Pou.
What would now happen to the bronze was not stated by him.
Since the eagle was first brought out of the riverbed, there has been debate over what will become of it. Its ownership was the subject of a protracted legal dispute.
Years ago, Germany objected when it was briefly displayed and requested that Uruguayan state not display "Nazi paraphernalia.".
The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights organization dedicated to Holocaust research and remembrance, cautioned that it could fall into the hands of Nazi sympathizers when a Uruguayan court ordered that the eagle should be sold at auction to pay off the private investors who had paid for its recovery from the River Plate.
The eagle belonged to the Uruguayan state, the country's Supreme Court ruled last year, but the government has not yet decided what should happen to it.
