The Sinking of the Lusitania Obverse

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.

Lusitania depicted as an armed cruiser, sinking, deck loaded with contraband armaments including aircraft and cannon; around top: KEINE BANNWARE (“no contraband”); in exergue: DER GROSSDAMPFER/ LVSITANIA=/ DURCH EIN DEVTSCHES/ TAUCHBOOT VERSENKT/ 5 MAI 1915 (“the steamer Lusitania sunk by a German submarine, 5 May 1915”)