The medals WVZ 77 to WVZ 81, “Born During the War”, are dedicated to children born during the war who had never seen their fathers, or only knew them after they returned from the front.

The concept of these commemorative medals/plaquettes is traditional from the renaissance period whereby wealthy families commemorated the birth event by issuing a birth medal to family members and close friends. Traditionally, religion played a large part in the design and intent of these medals. Although Gies was strongly religious, his birth medals are secular in nature and this fact might be attributed to the following story.

In 1914 Karl Goetz made a birth medal that was immediately, and mistakenly, described by an American newspaper reporter as “… a search for the “war-baby” and, sure enough, here it is on another medal nestling inside an inverted “pickelhaube” which reposes on a little pile of bombs.” Undoubtedly Gies heard this story but did not see the actual medal before designing these birth medals. The “bombs”, as described by the American reporter, are actually smudge pots used for heating the baby’s bath water in the helmet, and not some hidden anti-war propaganda as hoped for by the reporter.

Gies’ contribution to this theme apparently corresponds to his misconception that Goetz created an anti-war medal or, at minimum, a medal with a dissenting point of view. Unfortunately Gies was still under the watchful eye of the War Ministry’s censorship office after his “Excitement of War” medal was made and two of these birth medals, WVZ77 and WVZ81, were deemed “anti-war” and immediately banned.

The utilitarian intent for these medals has yet to be proven, as no examples are known to exhibit an actual engraved name and date of a birth on the reverse. The extremely small number of actual pieces would imply that these were purely art examples and not created for commercial purposes as implied by their design.