Sir, Having read Jack Kilpatrick's letter (July 23rd) on the Lusitania, I must say I concur in the main with his comments. Mr Kilpatrick tells us Germany issued a medal to celebrate the sinking of the Lusitania. In keeping with the consensus, I too believed that to be the case initially. However, research leads one to an entirely different direction.
Subsequent to the sinking of the Lusitaniawith its cargo of munitions, Germany hailed the event as a great success and one that saved thousands of German lives. In Munich, a private medal-maker, Karl Goetz, struck a medal to commemorate the disaster; his medal was dated May 5th, 1915. In fact the Lusitaniasank on May 7th, 1915. This was held by the British authorities as absolute proof the sinking was premeditated in Berlin and that the medal had been struck to commemorate the event before it happened. Somehow they reckoned Germany's plan misfired to the extent that the Lusitania was sunk two days later than scheduled by Berlin.
In fact, Karl Goetz did not make his controversial medal until August 1915, three months after the loss of the Lusitania. In a letter to the American Friends Service Committee in Frankfurt in 1921, Goetz stated the incorrect date on the medal was a printing error on his part taken from a newspaper account which had erred on the date.
In 1916, Goetz stated there were only 180 of his medals in existence. Capt Reginald Hall of British intelligence showed the controversial medal to Winston Churchill, who immediately recognised its propaganda value. Goetz's medal had the potential to whip up anti-German sentiment. Churchill subsequently ordered enormous quantities of fake Lusitaniamedals. The fake medals were presented in an attractive gift box with a picture of the Lusitaniaon the cover. Also enclosed in the box was a pamphlet containing inflammatory literature to highlight the barbaric nature of the German war machine.
Churchill's fake medals were distributed worldwide. The bad press caused by Britain's fake medals prompted the German war office via Baron Von Spiedel to ban Goetz from making further medals. Karl Goetz was furious at the way his medal was misinterpreted. In his various letters after the war, Goetz was adamant that his satirical medal was not made to gloat over the slaughter of the innocents on the Lusitaniabut rather to censure the unscrupulous Cunard Company for greed and negligence by duping civilian passengers to travel on a ship laden down with munitions of war. As such, the Lusitaniaforfeited her right to protection under cruiser rules and assumed the status of ship of war, a ship with hostile intent and therefore a legitimate target for German U-boats.
Goetz attempted to undo the damage to his name by issuing another Lusitaniamedal lampooning British propaganda in Sweden. The largely unknown Swedish medal failed to dilute anti-German sentiment. Karl Goetz made over 770 different medals throughout his long and illustrious career. He was born in Augsburg in 1875 and died in Munich in 1950. – Yours, etc,
