The Sinking of the Lusitania Reverse

One of the most notorious and famous medals of the war, the first version had an incorrect date for the sinking, May 5, corrected on the second version to May 7, which was used as “proof” by the British that the attack by U-20 had been cynically premeditated by the German Imperial Navy. At the instigation of the Director of Naval intelligence, Reginald Hall, the British made 300,000 replicas of Goetz’s medal and sold them for a shilling each along with a box and pamphlet in order to incite further contempt for the enemy. Goetz responded with yet another medal (fig. 6), which depicts the British using Goetz’s Lusitania medal on a smear campaign against Germany in neutral Sweden.

Death in a Cunard ticket window in New York City, standing near the line for tickets a man reads a newspaper on which is printed U-BOOT GEFAHR (“U-boat danger”); standing next to him a top-hatted and bearded figure, the German Ambassador to the US Count Johann-Heinrich von Bernstorff, raising a warning finger; around top: GESCHÄFT VBER ALLES (“business above all”)