RMS Lusitania - propaganda medal, leaflet and other items

RMS Lusitania - Carlton ware model 6.5 inches, together with German propaganda medal, leaflet, and other items. The bronze German Lusitania medal was designed by Karl Goetz. The obverse portrays a sinking Lusitania loaded with munitions with text reading Keine Bann Ware (no banned goods) and Der Grossdampfer Lusitania durch ein Deutsches tauchboot versenkt 5 Mai 1915, (The steamer Lusitania sunk by a German U-boat 5 May 1915). On the other side is a group of travellers buying tickets from the figure of Death manning the window of a British Cunard Line sales office while ignoring the warnings of other travellers about U-boat activity, with the text Geschaft Uber Alles (business above everything). The edge is stamped with Goetz's mark. The sinking of the RMS Lusitania, a civilian Cunard Company Ocean Liner, mostly populated by American passengers, by a German submarine off the south coast of Ireland on 5 May 1915 resulted in a sharp decline in Germany's image in the USA. The incident prompted Goetz to cast an unofficial commemorative medal satirising the greed of the Cunard Company for sending a passenger liner to Britain after loading it with war material. Although never intended for wider circulation or endorsed by the German government, the discovery of the medal by the British Foreign Office resulted in a large number of facsimile copies being made by Selfridge's, to distribute with an anti-German flyer for propaganda purposes. This is the first issue of the Goetz German medal. The original German medals are now all extremely rare. Diameter 2.25 inches

Picture No

13745867

Media ID

45752083

Size

2448px x 3264px (2.4MB)

Credit

Source

The Henry Aldridge & Son Ltd. Archive Collection

Date

1915