English: German Culture 1914, Pitt Street. A bizarre relic of the Great War, tucked away in a backstreet in Bonnington, Leith. The inscription above the scene reads, "The Valour Of German Culture, 1914". It depicts women in diaphanous dresses being assaulted by soldiers - presumably an allusion to The Rape Of The Sabine Women - only here the victims are Belgian civilians and the perpetrators brutal Prussian 'Huns'. It is believed that the building was a slaughterhouse when the figures were sculpted. Even to the untrained eye the work, which has apparently been damaged, is crude and amateurishly executed. Nevertheless, it testifies to the strength of anti-German feeling on the outbreak of the war. Countering the German boast of their superior 'Kultur' was a major theme in official propaganda of the time and the 'Belgian atrocities' were seen as its refutation. Ironically, a bomb fell on this very street during Edinburgh's only Zeppelin raid in April 1916. 1315129