102893 | GERMANY & FRANCE. Bloodsuckers on the Rhine cast bronze Medal.

102893  |  GERMANY & FRANCE. Bloodsuckers on the Rhine cast bronze Medal. Dated 1923. On the excessive cost of reparations and the bankruptcy of Germany (61mm, 64.28 g, 12h). By Karl Goetz in München.

 

"BOCHES" FEST / AUSGEPRESST (Boches [derogatory term for Germans during WWI] squeezed completely dry), the Deutscher Michel (representing the national character of the German people) lying right, being crushed under a screw press with handles terminating in the helmeted heads of the allied powers; the last few coins fall from the pocket of Michel // BLUTSAUGER / AM RHEIN (bloodsuckers on the Rhine), putto with grapes (representing the wine grown in the Rhineland) lying left, crying out and being sucked dry by an oversized leech; ЯF monogram above (for the French Republic). Edge: Some filing marks as made, otherwise plain.

 

Kienast 294. Choice Mint State. Brown-bronze surfaces.

 

Here, Goetz alludes to the immense distress that the post-war reparations were causing for his native Germany, showing the nation being squeezed economically and sucked dry from her resources. He even fits in a derogatory term that the French used for the Germans from the war (Boche), which may have derived from caboche, meaning rascal, or Alboche, standing as a variant of Alleman (German).

 

Upload: 2 December 2024.

 

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