Antique & Vintage Postcards

Horse-drawn carts and early electric trams jostle for space across the broad cobblestones of Linz's Franz-Josef-Platz — the ornate Plague Column rising at center like a white exclamation point above the bustling market crowd, while the green Pöstlingberg hills roll gently behind the rooftops in this brilliant Heliokolorkarte (helio-color print) that captures Austria's third-largest city at the very height of the First World War. The card bears a striking military censorship stamp — "K.K. Militärkommando Linz" — dated 22.II.1916, sent to a "Fräulein" in Passau an der Donau, the handwritten German Kurrent script filling every margin with what appears to be warm, reassuring correspondence from the front or garrison. The square is today known as the Hauptplatz and remains the heart of Linz; in 1916 it still carried the name of the aging emperor Franz Josef I, who would die just nine months after this card was mailed.