Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger Extra June 28 1914 Franz Ferdinand Assassination Sarajevo

Original Imperial German newspaper extra edition of 28 June 1914 reporting the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo on the very day it occurred, the event that set in motion the July Crisis and the outbreak of the First World War. The sheet is the Zweites Extra-Blatt (Second Extra Edition) of the Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, printed on one side only and measuring approximately 11 by 18 inches (about 28 by 46 cm).

The masthead carries the paper's Fraktur title Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger beneath the heading Zweites Extra-Blatt and the arms of Berlin, the city's bear rampant on a shield, flanked at left and right by the word Gratis! ("Free"), indicating the emergency giveaway nature of the sheet. The dateline reads 32. Jahrg. — Sonntag, 28. Juni — 1914 (32nd year, Sunday, 28 June 1914). The banner headline, in massive black Fraktur, announces Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand und Gemahlin ermordet ("Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Consort Murdered"), with the sub-header Bomben- und Pistolenattentat in Sarajewo — Meldung an Kaiser Franz Josef ("Bomb and Pistol Assassination in Sarajevo — Report to Emperor Franz Josef").

The report below, in German blackletter, describes the events of that morning in Sarajevo: the arrival of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne and his wife, the Duchess of Hohenberg, their drive through the city in an open motor-car, the failed bombing attempt on the way to the town hall in which several bystanders and members of the suite were wounded, and then, following the reception, the fatal shooting during the onward drive, when a young assailant fired several revolver shots that struck the Archduke in the face and the Duchess in the body, both dying within a quarter of an hour. A closing paragraph reports that Emperor Franz Josef, lately recovered from illness and just arrived at Bad Ischl, would return at once to Vienna, and that the bodies of the murdered couple were to be conveyed from Sarajevo to the Austrian capital. The text is notable for its immediacy and for the errors of the first confused hours, including a mistaken identification of the assassin's origins, exactly the kind of detail that marks a genuine same-day extra rather than a later, corrected account. The foot of the sheet carries the printer's imprint of the August Scherl publishing house of Berlin and the name of the responsible editor.

The historical weight of the document is difficult to overstate. The Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, founded by August Scherl in 1883, was one of the great mass-circulation dailies of Imperial Berlin, famous for its speed and for the Extrablatt, the single-sheet emergency edition rushed onto the streets and posted at the advertising columns of the city when news broke too fast for the regular edition. On the afternoon and evening of 28 June 1914 the paper issued successive extras as the reports came in from the south; this Second Extra carries the confirmed news of the double murder. Within five weeks the alliance system the sheet itself invokes, describing the Archduke as the heir of "the Danube monarchy allied to us" and "the friend of Kaiser Wilhelm," would draw the German Empire, Austria-Hungary, Russia, France, and Britain into war. The sheet is thus a first draft of the twentieth century's central catastrophe, printed in Berlin on the day the fuse was lit, before anyone yet grasped where it led.

The piece shows the physical characteristics of a genuine 1914 letterpress newsprint extra. The paper is thin, brittle, and evenly age-toned, the acidic wood-pulp stock of contemporary newspapers. Under magnification the solid black areas of the headline, the Berlin arms, and the heavy rules are continuous and dense with the slightly ragged ink edges of letterpress printing, without the regular halftone dot pattern that betrays a later offset reproduction, and the type shows the strong show-through to the blank reverse expected of period newsprint. The outer edges are irregularly trimmed with small nicks, consistent with period production rather than a modern guillotined reprint. This distinction matters, because the 28 June 1914 Lokal-Anzeiger extra is among the most frequently reproduced of all newspaper front pages, issued in facsimile for later anniversaries and in museum and magazine reprints; the printing method, paper, and edge characteristics are the means by which an original is told from a copy, and the buyer is encouraged to confirm them in hand.

Condition is very good for a fragile single-sheet extra more than a century old. The sheet is complete and printed on one side, blank on the reverse, with strong, fully legible impression throughout the headline and text. There are horizontal and vertical folds from storage, light overall toning, and minor edge wear with small nicks as described; there are no tears of consequence, no losses to the printed area, and no tape or repair evident. It presents as a sound, displayable original.

For the collector, this is a cornerstone document of First World War and twentieth-century history: the assassination that triggered the Great War, reported in an Imperial German capital on the day it happened, in an original period letterpress extra rather than a reproduction. Franz Ferdinand and Sarajevo material is collected across militaria, Great War, Austro-Hungarian, and press-history fields, and a genuine same-day German extra sits at the head of that category. Framed with the physical authentication points noted, it is both a striking display piece and a genuine artifact of the moment the old European order began to fall.