German satire: American aircraft carrier showing up on Elbe river, looking for Greenland Near the River Elbe in the Schleswig-Holstein region of Germany, there happens to be a tiny village named “Grönland”, which by coincidence, also is the German name for Greenland. According to this article in the German equivalent to The Onion, someone in the Pentagon got a little confused about that and sent an aircraft carrier on a top secret mission.