This is a replica of a German medal designed by Karl Goetz. The design was replicated and distributed by the British to demonstrate the brutality of the sinking of the passenger ship, RMS Lusitania. Around 300,000 British copies were made, many of these financed and sold by Gordon Selfridge, the department store owner. In this instance, German propaganda was seized upon by the British to suggest that the sinking of the Lusitania was premeditated. Alternatively the medal can be read as Goetz's critique of the passenger ship company placing profit above the safety of its passengers by disregarding German U-Boat warnings in newspapers.

The cast iron medal depicts on the obverse a starboard bow view of the ship sinking, while the reverse shows Death at the Cunard shipping office selling tickets, to a queue of people, for the voyage.

The medal came in a cardboard presentation box with a leaflet proclaiming:
This medal has been struck in German with the object of keeping alive in German hearts the recollection of the glorious achievement of the German Navy in deliberately destroying an unarmed passenger ship, together with 1,198 non-combatants, men, women and children.