Goetz, Karl (1875-1950), satiric medalist. Die Wacht Am Rhein propaganda medal.

Satirical motif by Karl Goetz (1875-1950), 1920. Silver 36 mm. Weight 21,7 gram.

The propaganda was directed against the African units of the French army deployed in the occupation of the Rhineland.

Obverse: The caricatured exaggerated head of an African soldier is depicted.

Reverse: Woman tied to a helmeted phallus.

DIE WACHT AM RHEIN
The Black Horror on the Rhine was a moral panic aroused in Weimar Germany and elsewhere concerning allegations of widespread crimes, especially sexual crimes, committed by Senegalese and other African soldiers serving in the French Army during the French occupation of the Rhineland between 1918 and 1930. Die schwarze Schande or Die schwarze Schmach ("the Black Shame" or "the Black Disgrace") were terms used by right-wing press as German nationalist propaganda in opposition to these events.

The colonial troops referred to were soldiers from Senegal, Indochina, and Madagascar. The majority of colonial African soldiers were accused of committing rape and mutilation against the German population by government propaganda and newspapers, despite a lack of complaints in the region itself. The campaign reached its peak between 1920 and 1923, but did not stop until 1930. Adolf Hitler blamed Jews for bringing the Senegalese into the Rhineland.

Along with phrases like "the black scourge" and "black horror", these terms were used by campaigners in different countries beyond Germany, such as Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

KARL GORTZ (1875-1950)
Karl Xaver Goetz (28 June 1875 - 8 September 1950) was a German medalist.

Karl Goetz was born in Augsburg and began an apprenticeship with the engraver Johannes Dominal at the age of 13. His journeyman's pieces were awarded by the city of Augsburg in 1892. As a journeyman, Goetz studied and worked on the Walz in Dresden, Leipzig, Berlin and Düsseldorf until 1897. After two years in Utrecht, he lived in Paris for five years before moving to Munich in 1904, where he lived until his death in 1950. Goetz was a member of the Munich Artists' Cooperative and the Numismatic Association. On April 27, 1912, Goetz married Margarete Stangl. They had three children, Guido, Brunhilde and Gertrud.

In the 40 years of his work, Goetz produced a total of 633 medals, some of which were distributed in large editions.

Early works
He often created his early pre-war works in Paris in the style of French Art Nouveau, especially portraits of people from the bourgeoisie, such as doctors, industrialists or ecclesiastical figures. These medals are considered to be his most artistically valuable, but are less well known today than his later propaganda works.

The "satirical medals"
During the First World War, Goetz increasingly turned to war propaganda. From 1913 to 1923, he created a series of 82 medals, now known as the "satirical medals," which includes his best-known works. These medals are attributed to Expressionism and always served to make a pointed dissemination of a political statement. The spectrum ranges from obvious glorification of German achievements to exaggeration to ridicule. Some of his medals are clearly racist. For example, his coin The Black Shame (1920) depicts a woman tied to a helmeted phallus; on the other side, the caricatured exaggerated head of an African soldier is depicted. The propaganda was directed against the African units of the French army deployed in the occupation of the Rhineland.

Goetz's best-known work is the Lusitania Medal, which depicts the sinking of the passenger ship Lusitania by German submarines on May 7, 1915. Goetz mistakenly coined May 5, 1915 as the date of the torpedo. Originally, the minting was a purely private initiative of Goetz, which only came into being in 1916 and initially comprised only a few hundred pieces. However, when a specimen was discovered by the British Foreign Office and an illustration published in the New York Times caused a sensation, the British government decided to use the medal for counter-propaganda. The early date was intended to portray the sinking of the civilian ship, in which nearly 1,200 people died, as a planned attack.

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