102284 | GERMANY & ENTENTE POWERS. Carriers of Culture cast bronze oval Medal.

102284  |  GERMANY & ENTENTE POWERS. Carriers of Culture cast bronze oval Medal. Dated 1914. "Kulturträger–Die Verbündeten im Weltkrieg"—on the allies' use of native colonials (90mm x 58mm, 12h). By K. Goetz in München.

 

KVLTVRTRÆGER, crowned and mantled busts of Nikolai II of Russia right and George V of the United Kingdom left; between them, facing bust of Raymond Poincaré (President of France), with hands on the monarchs' shoulders; in between (from left to right), busts with heavily caricatured features of African, Central Asian, Indonesian, and Asian soldiers, all held together Poincaré's "group hug" embrace; in two lines in exergue, VERBVENDETE / IM WELTKRIEG // ZVR SCHANDE / SEI ES LAVT GESAGT, / ZVM SPOTTE – / ER WIRD IN EVCH NAGEN, / DASS IHR DIE WILDEN HORDEN / JAGT AVF JENE – / DIE, KVLTVR NACH FERNSTEN / LANDEN TRAGEN (Let it be said out loud in derision, "For Shame"– It will gnaw on you that for you the wild hordes hunt on those who carry culture to the furthest lands) in eight lines.

 

Kienast 140. NGC MS-62 Brown.

 

Here, Goetz very directly alludes to allied use of colonial soldiers in the war effort. While sticking to rather benign, non-caricatured depictions of the three leaders, he heavily delves into racialized tropes with the non-Caucasian representations. This visual stereotyping is present in a contemporaneous issue satirizing Japan in Germany's colonial outpost in Chinese Kiao Chau (Jiaozhou), and later during post-WWI issues pertaining to the occupation of the Rhineland and the supposed harassment of German women by French colonial troops from Africa. A larger issue than those generally issued by Goetz at the time, and in the highly unusual oval (rather than circular) format.

 

Upload: 15 June 2023.

 

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