The home port of RMS. Lusitania.


No. 1 for information on the ship and her last Master,
Captain W.T. Turner.

  
  

 

 
 

 


 
 
 
 

 

Lusitania's and the

Karl Goetz Medals

Karl Goetz, a medal maker from Munich,
produced a satirical medal in response to the German Navy's sinking of the Lusitania.
His satire was aimed directly at Cunard and the German government.

Only a handful were ever made by Goetz,
but the British Government seized on it and Selfridge's, the famous London department store,
mass produced a copy of his medal with a very anti-German flyer.

The original Goetz medal is bronze-like and has the date as 5th Mai, (German spelling) whereas the British version was made of a grey metal and has the correct date of 7th May, (English spelling).

Goetz later produced a bronze-like version bearing the correct date in German, (7th Mai)
but by then the medal had lost any popularity it once had.

There were a number of manifests printed in different newspapers, all of which are inaccurate and different to the one above.

 
 

Important note:
Neither Walther Schwieger, nor his crew, at any time ever received any medal specifically for the sinking of the Lusitania.

 
     

 

 
 

 

 

 

Goetzmedalfront2

 

Front and Back of a Goetz Original medal.

Lusitania Online collection.

 
   

Goetzmedalback2

 

 

 

Below is a copy of the propaganda flyer put out with the British version of the medal.

medalflyerA

 

The text of the flyer reads;

"This medal has been struck in Germany with the object
of keeping alive in German Hearts
the recollection of the glorious achievement
of the German Navy in deliberately destroying
an unarmed passenger ship, together with
1,198 non combatant men, women and children.

On the obverse, under the legend "No contraband"
(Keine Bannware), there is a representation
of the Lusitania sinking.
The designer has put in guns and aeroplanes,
which (as certified by United States Government officials after inspection)
the Lusitania did not carry,
but has conveniently omitted to put in the women and children,
which the world knows she did carry.
On the reverse, under the legend "Business above all"
(Geschaft uber alles), the figure of Death
sits at the booking office of the Cunard Line
and gives out tickets to passengers,
who refuse to attend to the warning against submarines
given by a German.
This picture seeks apparently to propound the theory
that if a murderer warns his victim of his intention,
the guilt of the crime will rest with the victim,
not with the murderer".