[Illustration: German Capture Medal by L. Gies]
Because of its medallic representation a typically German “war medal” will be mentioned first. No specimen was available to this writer. None is found in the Museum of the American Numismatic Society in New York City. It is a unilateral bronze medal, measuring 64 millimeters in diameter, designed by the German artist. Ludwig Gies, whose initials L.G. appear on the obverse. It is one of the numerous “war medals” created by him in the beginning of the First World War. It depicts the act of capture. A German soldier is shown capturing and taking away a French, a Russian, an English, Belgian, Serbian, and a colonial native prisoner of war. A brief description, but no reproduction of this medal, is found in J. Schulman’s Catalogue LXV, of April 1916, p. 82, No. 809. It is pictured among the artist’s other war medals in Max Bernhart’s _Die Muenchener Medaillenkunst der Gegenwart_, Plate 15, No. 102, wherefrom the reproduction is made.
The medal reproduced here as No. 1, another German war prisoner medal, is a silver medal, of 37.67 grams, measuring forty-one millimeters in diameter. The obverse depicts the full figure of a German prisoner of war, dressed in his uniform, on which a sign PG (French: _prisonnier de guerre_) is visible. Standing on the shore of a river, being of course the Rhine, he holds his hands stretched out to express his fervent longing for his home country. Not only the mountains of the latter are visible on the opposite shore but also the home village with its little church in the foreground. The inscription in the left upper space of the medal, before the soldier’s eyes, reads: SEHNSUCHT (longing). The reverse bears the following inscription in a quadrangular space surrounded by ornaments: VOLKSBUND/ZUM SCHUTZE/DER DEUTSCHEN/KRIEGS u. ZIVIL/GEFANGENEN, meaning, “National Society for the Protection of German Military and Civil Prisoners of War.” On the rim of the medal name and place of the producing firm are visible: C. Poellat, Schrobenhausen. The designer’s name does not appear on the medal. No year is given. In accordance with the aims of the issuing society the medal was probably destined to promote interest in and support of the German prisoners of war in enemy land. No records or accounts of the activities of this society were available in this country. Nevertheless it is safe to assume the following. Sending of food parcels from Germany was possible only in the first years of war. But even later, in the period of grave food shortage, funds were still needed and actually raised for clothing, and particularly for books, which were continuously sent to prisoner camps in great quantities. A specimen of this medal is in the collection of Dr. Bruno Kisch, New York City.