Admiral Graf Spee was a Deutschland-class heavy cruiser ('pocket battleship') which served with the Kriegsmarine of Nazi Germany during World War II. Admiral Graf Spee was deployed to the South Atlantic in the weeks before the outbreak of World War II, to be positioned in merchant sea lanes once war was declared. Between September and December 1939. It was confronted by three British cruisers at the Battle of the River Plate and sunk in 1939