Description
Object description
piece obverse design : RMS Lusitania, sinking, stern submerged to left, her ram-shaped and armament-laden bows raised,
smoke issuing from her four funnels
piece obverse text : "KEINE BANN WARE!" (upper edge)
piece exergue (obverse) : "DER GROSSDAMPFER = = = = LUSITANIA = DURCH EIN DEUTSCHES TAUCHBOOT VERSENKT 5.MAI 1915" (in 5 lines) piece reverse design : Death, in the form of a skeleton, facing left behind the ticket office counter of the Cunard Line, New York, issuing tickets to a crush of passengers. Above the window the words "CUNA LINIE", positioned vertically along the right side of the window the word "CUNARD" and below the window and counter the words "FAHRKARTEN AUSGABE". At the extreme left of the crowd a man reads a newspaper
bearing the words "U BOOT GEFAHR" and standing next to him a top-hatted and bearded figure, caricature of Count Bernstorff, raises a warning finger
piece reverse text : "GESCHÄFT ÜBER ALLES"
piece exergue (reverse) : "K.G"
Label
The Cunard liner RMS Lusitania was torpedoed by the German submarine U20 (commanded by Walther Schwieger) on 7 May
1915. 1201 men, women and children were drowned including 124 citizens of the United States
This vivid commemoration of the sinking (and all the circumstances associated with its loss) is perhaps Goetz's most notorious medal of the
First World War. Convinced of the justification for the sinking, the artist regarded the event as the logical consequence of the
irresponsibility of the British government and the Cunard Steamship Company, in allowing the return of the liner from New York to Liverpool
at the time of intense and well-publicised U-boat activity. Goetz also believed implicitly that the liner carried arms and munitions in
support of the British war effort. Certain of the justice of Germany's cause, his Lusitania medal mocked the Allied obsession with business
and derided the supposed impartiality of the USA. Unfortunately he made an error in the dating of the sinking (the piece is dated '5 MAI'
instead of the '7 MAI'), which was, he later stated, due to a 'writing error' on his part. Although the date error was corrected and a
revised version of the medal re-issued, Goetz's mistake was very quickly seized upon by the British propaganda machine to form the basis of
a powerful world-wide anti-German propaganda campaign, the intention being to demonstrate that the sinking was cynically pre-planned (see
MED 861). MED 937 is considered to be an authentic German first issue 'Lusitania Medallion' based on a comparison with an authenticated
original held by the British Museum. Principal aids to identification were: (1) date in obverse exergue '5.MAI 1915'. Goetz, taking his
information from a newspaper account of the sinking, got the date wrong; (2) the clearly defined umlauts over the 'A' of 'GESCHÄFT' and the
'V' ('U') of 'ÜBER' in the reverse text; (3) the quality of finish and size of characters of text.
Various authorities state that Goetz altered the appearance of the Lusitania's bows to resemble those of a warship in the obverse design.
The obverse text is translated as 'No contraband goods' and the obverse exergue text as 'The liner Lusitania sunk by a German submarine 5
May 1915'. The significance of the newspaper in the reverse design is that on 1 May 1915, Lusitania's sailing day from New York, a German
sponsored announcement appeared next to the Cunard advertisement in all New York papers reminding passengers that Germany was at war with
Britain and her allies and that the war zone included the waters around the British Isles, also that vessels flying the flag of Great
Britain, or any of her allies, were liable to destruction in British waters. The text on newspaper is translated as 'U-boat menace' and the
principal reverse text is translated as 'Business above all'. See also German satirical medallion by Walther Eberbach, MED 310.
On-Line exhibition: http://www.iwm.org.uk/online/lusitan/lusi1.htm