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Lusitania Medal Links
National wwi museum and memorial
On May 7, 1915, the passenger liner Lusitania was sunk by German submarine U-20 in British waters. Of the passengers, 1,198 drowned, including many women and children and 124 U.S. citizens. Public outrage began quickly around the world and this is a major reason the U.S joined the war. After this tragedy, a German artist named Karl Goetz decided to make a medal for the Lusitania sinking. It depicted the hole scene. It was intended to be to be a political cartoon, but it became a propaganda tool. On one side, it showed the Lusitania sinking at it’s stern with artillery pieces and airplanes on deck. Which translated: No contraband goods. On the other side, it shows a skeleton selling tickets to long lines of unwary passengers. Which is translated to: Business above all ! The medal showed the British that the Germans had done a cowardly act by sinking the ship.
Surprisingly, Goetz got the date wrong when he wrote May 5 and not May 7. There were about 430 medals with may 5 on them before he corrected them to may 7 and there have been only 41 to 45 medals of this kind made. The Museum and Memorial has two in the collection. The British quickly utilized the first German version as propaganda. British Naval Intelligence ordered about 250,000 copies struck with the May 5 date and sold them through the Lusitania Souvenir Medal Committee to the public at one shilling each. The British-produced medal was presented in an attractive box with an explanatory certificate. Proceeds of the sales were to benefit the St. Dunstan’s Blinded Soldiers and Sailors Hostel. The British medal was thicker and more crudely rendered than the Goetz medal and now Museums have copies of the Lusitania Medal.
About The Lusitania Medal