--- title: Germany answers back:the Manifesto of the 93 and the Lusitania medal (1914-1916) url: https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/manifesto-of-the-93-1914/ description: Ninety-three of Germany's most famous scholars and artists put their names to six flat denials about the invasion of Belgium, which later research showed… section: Case studies --- ![Illustration: a First World War field-intelligence collage of trench maps, wireless transmission logs and aerial reconnaissance photographs.](https://propagandaarchive.org/static/generated/detail/hero-wwi.jpg) [Case studies](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/) # Germany answers back:the Manifesto of the 93 and the Lusitania medal (1914-1916) At a glance Ninety-three of Germany's most famous scholars and artists put their names to six flat denials about the invasion of Belgium, which later research showed to be false on the central point… - **When:** 1914–1916 - **Actor:** German scholars, scientists and artists… - **Target:** Neutral opinion abroad, above all in the United States… - **Source:** Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are - **Confidence:** **documented** Primary documents, court records, official disclosures - **Techniques:** [Testimonial](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/testimonial/) [Whataboutism](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/whataboutism/) [Transfer](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/transfer/) [Card stacking](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/card-stacking/) - **Regime:** [German Empire under Wilhelm II](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/german-empire/) Full details - **Actor:** German scholars, scientists and artists (the 93 signatories of 'An die Kulturwelt!'); the German Foreign Office's Zentralstelle für Auslandsdienst; the Imperial German Embassy in Washington and Bernhard Dernburg in New York; the Munich medallist Karl Goetz; and, reproducing his medal, a London 'Lusitania Souvenir Medal Committee' - **Target:** Neutral opinion abroad, above all in the United States; German readers at home; in the case of the medal copies, the British and neutral public On this page - [What happened](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/manifesto-of-the-93-1914/#what-happened) - [How it works](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/manifesto-of-the-93-1914/#how-it-works) - [Then and now](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/manifesto-of-the-93-1914/#then-and-now) - [Positions on the record](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/manifesto-of-the-93-1914/#positions-on-the-record) - [Same-method test](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/manifesto-of-the-93-1914/#same-method-test) - [How to spot it](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/manifesto-of-the-93-1914/#how-to-spot-it) - [Images](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/manifesto-of-the-93-1914/#images) - [Sources](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/manifesto-of-the-93-1914/#sources) On this page > **Content note.** This page quotes the 1914 manifesto's racial language about colonial troops ("inciting Mongolians and negroes against the white race") and a 1915 leaflet about the drowning of women and children on the *Lusitania*. They are quoted as the evidence under study. **In one line:** Ninety-three of Germany's most famous scholars and artists put their names to six flat denials about the invasion of Belgium, which later research showed to be false on the central point; a year later a German satirist's medal about the *Lusitania* was copied in Britain in large numbers, with a leaflet that turned it into proof of German callousness. ![Diagram: the 93 sign six denials on 4 October 1914; the text is sent abroad and printed in U.S. papers; British scholars reply; the Embassy warning runs on 1 May 1915 and the Lusitania sinks on 7 May; Karl Goetz's satirical medal is copied in Britain with a leaflet; later research confirms the Belgian killings the manifesto denied](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/images/manifesto-of-the-93-1914-diagram.svg) ## What happened - **August 1914.** German troops invade Belgium. In mass executions and burnings they kill about 6,500 civilians in Belgium and France between August and October (6,427 in Horne and Kramer's count), among them 248 at Leuven (Louvain), where the university library burns from the night of 25 August. The events are covered in [Wellington House and the Bryce Report: atrocity evidence, confirmed and unconfirmed (1914-1915)](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/bryce-report-1915/). - **4 October 1914.** German newspapers publish "An die Kulturwelt! Ein Aufruf" ("To the civilized world! An appeal"), signed by 93 scholars, scientists and artists, among them Max Planck, Fritz Haber, Wilhelm Röntgen, Paul Ehrlich, Emil von Behring, Adolf von Harnack, Ernst Haeckel, Gerhart Hauptmann and Max Liebermann. According to the von Ungern-Sternbergs, the text was written by the dramatist Ludwig Fulda, and many signatories agreed by telegram without seeing the final wording. Six paragraphs begin "Es ist nicht wahr" ("It is not true"): that Germany caused the war; that it "trespassed in neutral Belgium"; that the life or property of "a single Belgian citizen" was harmed "without the bitterest self-defense having made it necessary"; that "our troops treated Louvain brutally"; that German warfare ignores international law; and that the fight against "so-called militarism" is not a fight against German civilisation. - **October 1914.** The physician Georg Friedrich Nicolai drafts a counter-appeal, "Aufruf an die Europäer". It gains four signatures, including Albert Einstein's and that of the astronomer Wilhelm Foerster, who had also signed the manifesto of the 93. It is not published until 1917. - **October 1914.** The Foreign Office sets up the Zentralstelle für Auslandsdienst (Central Office for Foreign Services) to supply pamphlets, books and pictures to neutral countries (Welch). - **20-24 October 1914.** The English text, "To the Civilized World!", appears in American papers. The *Topeka State Journal* reports that "prominent newspapers are receiving from Berlin" the document. A Lutheran pastor in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, sends the *Harrisburg Telegraph* the copy he "received ... directly from Germany", and it is printed in full on 23 October. ![Harrisburg Telegraph, 23 October 1914: "Rev. Lisse Gets Letter Giving German Side of War Controversy", with the full English text of the manifesto](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/images/manifesto-of-the-93-1914-harrisburg-letter.jpg) *"To the Civilized World!" as printed in the* Harrisburg Telegraph*, 23 October 1914, p. 12. Chronicling America, Library of Congress. Public domain; cropped by FRAME.* - **21 October 1914.** The *New-York Tribune* reports from London that British scholars have signed a "Reply to the German Professors", with "about 130 signatures", among them Lord Rayleigh, Sir William Crookes, Sir Oliver Lodge and Sir William Ramsay. It rests Britain's case on the treaty guarantee of Belgian neutrality and says the German professors are "gravely mistaken" if they expect sympathy in British universities. - **1 May 1915.** The German Embassy's notice, dated "April 22, 1915", runs in New York papers. It reminds "travellers intending to embark on the Atlantic voyage" that ships under the British flag "are liable to destruction" in the war zone and that passengers sail "at their own risk". In *The Sun* it sits directly above Cunard's advertisement for the *Lusitania*, sailing that morning. ![The Sun, New York, 1 May 1915: the Imperial German Embassy's NOTICE! above the Cunard advertisement for the Lusitania](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/images/manifesto-of-the-93-1914-embassy-warning.jpg) *The Sun (New York), 1 May 1915, p. 9. Chronicling America, Library of Congress. Public domain; cropped by FRAME.* - **7 May 1915.** The German submarine U-20 sinks the *Lusitania* off Ireland; 1,198 people die, 128 of them American. The cargo manifest listed rifle cartridges and shrapnel shells. On 8 May Bernhard Dernburg, the former colonial secretary who had been speaking for Germany in New York for months, tells an audience in Cleveland that the sinking was justified because the ship carried contraband and was classified as an auxiliary cruiser, and that the Embassy's warnings relieved Germany of responsibility. He leaves the United States on 12 June. ![Enlist (1915-1916): a mother and infant sink through dark water](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/enlist-lusitania-1915.jpg) *[Enlist](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/enlist-lusitania-1915/), Boston Public Safety Committee, artist Fred Spear, 1915 or 1916. Spear's poster names no enemy at all. Public domain in the U.S.* - **1915.** In Munich, the medallist Karl Goetz (1875-1950) casts a satirical medal. The obverse shows the ship sinking with guns and aircraft on deck under "Keine Bannware!" ("No contraband!"), with the date "5 Mai 1915", two days early. The reverse, "Geschäft über alles" ("Business above all"), shows Death selling tickets at the Cunard office to passengers who ignore a man reading of "U-Boot-Gefahr" (U-boat danger). - **Later in the war (the leaflet is undated).** In Britain, a "Lusitania Souvenir Medal Committee" in London issues cast-iron copies in a box whose lid calls it "an exact replica of the medal which was designed in Germany and distributed to commemorate the sinking", with a leaflet headed "A German Naval Victory". Profits go to St Dunstan's hostel for blinded servicemen. ## How it works - [Testimonial](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/testimonial/): the manifesto asks the reader to believe it because of who signed. It offers no documents about Belgium, only names: "For this we pledge you our names and our honor." American papers led with the names: the *Topeka State Journal* introduced Behring as "discoverer of diphtheretic anti-toxin" and Ehrlich as the discoverer of salvarsan. None of the physicists, chemists or painters had seen the events at Leuven. The British reply answered in the same currency, with a longer list of names. - [Whataboutism](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/whataboutism/): the denial that German warfare breaks international law is not argued; the paragraph turns to other charges. "In the east, the earth is satured [sic] with the blood of women and children unmercifully butchered by the wild Russian troops, and in the west, dum-dum bullets mutilate the breasts of our soldiers. Those who have allied themselves with Russians and Servians, and present such a shameful scene to the world as that of inciting Mongolians and negroes against the white race, have no right whatever to call themselves upholders of civilization." (Harrisburg printing.) Whether these counter-charges were true or false, they do not bear on what German troops did in Belgium. The 1916 chart *Sind wir die Barbaren?* makes the same move with statistics. ![Sind wir die Barbaren? (1916), German statistical chart](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/sind-wir-die-barbaren-1916.jpg) *[Sind wir die Barbaren? (Are We the Barbarians?)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sind-wir-die-barbaren-1916/), Imperial German counter-propaganda, artist Louis Oppenheim, 1916. Public domain.* - [Transfer](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/transfer/): the manifesto closes by setting the army beside "the legacy of a Goethe, a Beethoven, and a Kant", so the prestige of German culture covers the conduct of German troops. The Kaiser's own words of 31 July 1914, sold as a Red Cross print, do the same with a religious image: Saint George kills the dragon above "Neider überall zwingen uns zu gerechter Verteidigung" ("Envious rivals everywhere force us into just defence"). ![Unser Kaiser an sein Volk (1914): Saint George slays a dragon above the Kaiser's proclamation of 31 July 1914](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/unser-kaiser-an-sein-volk-1914.jpg) *[Unser Kaiser an sein Volk (Our Emperor to His People)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/unser-kaiser-an-sein-volk-1914/), Red Cross benefit print, artist Eduard Kaempffer, 1914. Public domain in the U.S.* - [Card stacking](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/card-stacking/): the Leuven paragraph picks a true detail and leaves out the rest. "The famous Town Hall stands quite intact", which was so; it does not mention the library. The executions are presented as punishment of civilians who "lay in ambush", a claim Horne and Kramer, working in German army records, found no evidence for. The British leaflet stacks the other way. It says, correctly, that U.S. officials certified the *Lusitania* carried no guns or aircraft, and omits the munitions in her cargo. It says the medal was "struck in Germany with the object of keeping alive in German hearts the recollection of the glorious achievement of the German Navy", and does not say that it was one artist's private satire, sharp against Cunard and the passengers who ignored a warning. It speaks for Germany through one newspaper line: "With joyful pride we contemplate this latest deed", attributed to the *Kölnische Volkszeitung* of 10 May 1915. ![A German Naval Victory: leaflet issued with the British copy of the medal](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/images/manifesto-of-the-93-1914-british-leaflet.jpg) *Leaflet issued with the British copy, headed "A German Naval Victory". Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira, 1965.78.901. Photograph CC BY 4.0.* ![British copy of the Goetz medal, obverse: the Lusitania sinking under Keine Bannware](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/images/manifesto-of-the-93-1914-medal-obverse.jpg) *British cast-iron copy, obverse: "Keine Bannware!" and "5 Mai 1915". Auckland War Memorial Museum, 1965.78.901. Photograph CC BY 4.0.* ![British copy of the Goetz medal, reverse: Death sells tickets at the Cunard office under Geschäft über alles](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/images/manifesto-of-the-93-1914-medal-reverse.jpg) *Reverse: "Geschäft über alles", with Death at the ticket window and Goetz's initials "K.G." Auckland War Memorial Museum, 1965.78.901. Photograph CC BY 4.0.* The manifesto, the Embassy notice, Dernburg's speeches and the Goetz medal were all **white** propaganda: signed, and open about who was speaking. The British copies carried a committee's name but no government's, and this page has not traced who paid for them. ## Then and now In 2026 the Matryoshka network took real video of well-known people and recut it with cloned voices and a borrowed CNN logo ([Matryoshka's midterm clips: borrowed faces and a borrowed logo](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/matryoshka-midterm-clips/)). The British medal copies used a milder form of the same move: a genuine object from the other side, reissued with a new frame. The differences are plain. Goetz's medal was real and unaltered; the copy was faithful, and the box said it was a replica. Its mockery of the passengers was his own. What changed was the caption, which turned a private satire into an official German commemoration. Matryoshka put words in people's mouths that they never said. Nothing in the medal copies was synthetic. The manifesto's move also has a closer relative in this archive. The Bryce Committee in 1915 put eminent British names on anonymous testimony ([Wellington House and the Bryce Report: atrocity evidence, confirmed and unconfirmed (1914-1915)](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/bryce-report-1915/)). Both sides used scholarly prestige in place of evidence. On the central question, Belgian civilians killed by German troops, the later record supports the British names and not the German ones. ## Positions on the record - **The signatories' account at the time.** The manifesto presents itself as a protest "against the lies and calumnies" of Germany's enemies, by "heralds of truth". - **Later statements by signatories.** Max Planck, in a 1916 letter to the Dutch physicist Hendrik Lorentz that was made public, distanced himself from the manifesto's wording (Heilbron). The von Ungern-Sternbergs trace how signatures were collected, often without the text being seen, and how several signatories later regretted signing or said they had not read it. - **The British scholars.** The "Reply to the German Professors" states that Germany broke a treaty it had signed and that Britain entered a war of defence. - **Later research.** Horne and Kramer (2001) confirm the mass killings and burnings of 1914 from German, Belgian and French records, including German army files. The manifesto's third and fourth denials, on Belgian civilians and on Leuven, are contradicted by that record. Its claims about the war's origins are a separate historical debate that this page does not score. - **The medal.** The medal and the British copy survive in museums, and the leaflet's text can be read on the object. What is not shown here: who financed the London committee, and how many copies were made. Published figures vary, and this page has not verified one. ## Same-method test A British poster or leaflet would be scored the same way for letting one German newspaper speak for Germany. A German poster that did the same with one British MP is scored that way in this archive: *Was England will!* (1918) quotes William Joynson-Hicks, mislabelled "the English labour leader", as the voice of England. A manifesto of 93 British, French or American professors denying documented killings by their own army, with their names as the only evidence, would get the same four tags. ![Was England will! (1918), German poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/was-england-will-1918.jpg) *[Was England will! (What England Wants!)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/was-england-will-1918/), German home-front poster, artist Egon Tschirch, 1918. Public domain in the U.S.* ## How to spot it - Ask whether the signers were in a position to know. A Nobel prize in chemistry is not evidence about a street in Leuven. - Read denials sentence by sentence. "The famous Town Hall stands quite intact" can be true while the library burned. - When a charge is answered with a different charge, note that the first one has not been answered. - Ask who made an object, who reissued it, and what the new caption adds. The box called Goetz's medal a replica; the leaflet told the reader what it meant. ![The box of the British copy, open, with the text inside the lid](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/images/manifesto-of-the-93-1914-medal-box.jpg) *Box of the British copy: "This indicates the true feeling the War Lords endeavour to stimulate ... in the land of Kultur." Auckland War Memorial Museum, 1965.78.901. Photograph CC BY 4.0.* ## Images | Image | Source | Licence | | --- | --- | --- | | Mechanism diagram (above) | Drawn for FRAME from this page's sourced facts (`make_diagrams.py`) | CC BY 4.0, FRAME | | *Harrisburg Telegraph*, 23 Oct 1914, p. 12 | [Chronicling America, Library of Congress](https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn85038411/1914-10-23/ed-1/?sp=12) | Public domain (U.S., published 1914); cropped by FRAME | | *The Sun*, New York, 1 May 1915, p. 9 | [Chronicling America, Library of Congress](https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83030272/1915-05-01/ed-1/?sp=9) | Public domain (U.S., published 1915); cropped by FRAME | | Leaflet "A German Naval Victory" | [Auckland War Memorial Museum, via Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Medal,_commemorative_(AM_1965.78.901-1).jpg) | Photograph CC BY 4.0; leaflet public domain by age | | British copy of the Goetz medal, obverse | [Auckland War Memorial Museum, via Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Medal,_commemorative_(AM_1965.78.901-2).jpg) | Photograph CC BY 4.0; medal public domain (Goetz died 1950) | | British copy of the Goetz medal, reverse | [Auckland War Memorial Museum, via Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Medal,_commemorative_(AM_1965.78.901-4).jpg) | Photograph CC BY 4.0; medal public domain | | Box of the British copy | [Auckland War Memorial Museum, via Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Medal,_commemorative_(AM_1965.78.901-5).jpg) | Photograph CC BY 4.0; box public domain by age | | *Unser Kaiser an sein Volk* (1914) | FRAME gallery, from the Library of Congress | Public domain in the U.S. (published before 1931) | | *Sind wir die Barbaren?* (1916) | FRAME gallery, from Wikimedia Commons | Public domain | | *Was England will!* (1918) | FRAME gallery, from the Library of Congress | Public domain in the U.S. (published before 1931) | ### Image gaps - **Goetz's original bronze medal, and his later version dated 7 May.** A U.S. Navy museum photograph on Commons (public domain) shows one example, but it does not say whether it is a German original or a British copy, so it is not used. **Fillable** from a museum photograph with a clear licence and catalogue record. - **The German printing of the manifesto, 4 October 1914.** Public domain by age; no scan of a German newspaper page could be reached from the build environment. **Fillable.** - **The "Reply to the German Professors".** Public domain by age. The *New-York Tribune* report of 21 October 1914 is on Chronicling America, but it runs across two columns shared with other stories and does not crop cleanly. **Fillable** from the Oxford pamphlet edition. - **Zentralstelle für Auslandsdienst pamphlets and Dernburg's New York material.** Public domain by age; none were found on loc.gov, and archive.org is blocked here. **Fillable.** ## Sources - "An die Kulturwelt! Ein Aufruf", German newspapers, 4 October 1914. English text as ["To the Civilized World!", *Harrisburg Telegraph*, 23 October 1914, p. 12](https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn85038411/1914-10-23/ed-1/?sp=12), and ["The German View", *Topeka State Journal*, 24 October 1914, p. 3](https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn82016014/1914-10-24/ed-1/?sp=3). Chronicling America. - ["British Scientists Reply to Germans", *New-York Tribune*, 21 October 1914, p. 2](https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83030214/1914-10-21/ed-1/?sp=2). Chronicling America. - [*The Sun* (New York), 1 May 1915, p. 9](https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83030272/1915-05-01/ed-1/?sp=9) (Embassy notice and Cunard advertisement); ["Germany Warns Against Travel in Allies' Ships", *New-York Tribune*, 1 May 1915, p. 3](https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83030214/1915-05-01/ed-1/?sp=3). Chronicling America. - ["Dernburg Justifies Sinking", *Topeka State Journal*, 8 May 1915, p. 6](https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn82016014/1915-05-08/ed-1/?sp=6); ["Dernburg Sails", *New-York Tribune*, 13 June 1915, p. 1](https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83030214/1915-06-13/ed-1/?sp=1). Chronicling America. - Jürgen von Ungern-Sternberg and Wolfgang von Ungern-Sternberg, *Der Aufruf "An die Kulturwelt!": Das Manifest der 93 und die Anfänge der Kriegspropaganda im Ersten Weltkrieg* (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1996; 2nd edition, Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2013). - John Horne and Alan Kramer, *German Atrocities, 1914: A History of Denial* (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001). - David Welch, *Germany, Propaganda and Total War, 1914-1918: The Sins of Omission* (London: Athlone Press, 2000). - J. L. Heilbron, *The Dilemmas of an Upright Man: Max Planck as Spokesman for German Science* (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986). - Georg Friedrich Nicolai, *Die Biologie des Krieges* (Zurich: Orell Füssli, 1917), which prints the "Aufruf an die Europäer". - Diana Preston, *Lusitania: An Epic Tragedy* (New York: Walker, 2002). - Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira, object 1965.78.901: boxed British copy of the Lusitania medal with leaflet ([Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Medal,_commemorative_(AM_1965.78.901-1).jpg)). - Gallery: [Unser Kaiser an sein Volk (Our Emperor to His People)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/unser-kaiser-an-sein-volk-1914/), [Sind wir die Barbaren? (Are We the Barbarians?)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sind-wir-die-barbaren-1916/), [Was England will! (What England Wants!)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/was-england-will-1918/), [Enlist](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/enlist-lusitania-1915/).