Paul Ascher was the artillery officer aboard the Panzerschiff Admiral Graf Spee during her cruise in the South Atlantic. He was later interned in Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

 in December 1939 after the scuttling of the ship, but escaped back to Germany.

Paul Ascher was Fregattenkapitän

Frigate Captain

Frigate captain is a naval rank in the naval forces of several countries.It is, usually, equivalent to the Commonwealth/US Navy rank of commander.Countries using this rank include Argentina and Spain , France , Belgium , Italy ,...

 aboard the Bismarck

German battleship Bismarck

Bismarck was the first of two s built for the German Kriegsmarine during World War II. Named after Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, the primary force behind the German unification in 1871, the ship was laid down at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg in July 1936 and launched nearly three years later...

 at the time of its sinking. Prior to the war, he was labeled as a Mischling

Mischling

Mischling was the German term used during the Third Reich to denote persons deemed to have only partial Aryan ancestry. The word has essentially the same origin as mestee in English, mestizo in Spanish and métis in French...

, as being a "half-Jew".