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Auction: 390 - Renaissance Plaquettes and Commemorative Medals featuring the Neil A. Goodman Collection - e-Auction
Lot: 224

Germany. Churchill and the Sinking of the Athenia. Satirical Medal, 1939. Iron, 69mm. By Guido Goetz. Cast by Karl and Guido Goetz, Munich. Churchill seated facing on a wooden shipping crate inscribed in German: "Caution: Infernal machine"; in his left hand he holds a balance scale, a bomb in the far balance, a torpedo with a swastika in the near balance; his hand tipping the scale to weigh down the torpedo; "A Master of the Lie", rev. The Athenia steaming right, breaking waves, the skeletal figure of Death straddling its bow, holding a torch and a bomb adorned with the Union Jack, date above. Engstrom 3b. A day after returning as First Lord of the Admiralty, Churchill addressed the House of Commons, September 4, 1939. His first statement concerned the sinking of the Donaldson Atlantic liner "Athenia", which was sunk by a German U-boat off the coast of Ireland with heavy loss of life a few hours after the declaration of war. Churchill commented "She was torpedoed without the slightest warning in circumstances which the whole opinion of the world after the late war, in which Germany concurred, has stigmatized as inhuman." Goebbels denied that Germany had anything to do with the attack and responded with an absurd scenario that claimed Churchill had an infernal machine hid on the ship as part of a nefarious scheme to create a new "Lusitania". Hence the propaganda elements of this piece, of which only 100 were cast. Uncirculated.
From the Oxford Court Collection

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$425

Starting price
$150