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Leopold Lojka (also spelt Leopold Loyka; 17 September 1886 – 18 July 1926) was a Czech chauffeur, soldier and innkeeper. He was the chauffeur of the car carrying Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand at the time of Ferdinand's assassination in Sarajevo in 1914.
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Leopold Lojka (also spelt Leopold Loyka; 17 September 1886 – 18 July 1926) was a Czech chauffeur, soldier and innkeeper. He was the chauffeur of the car carrying Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand at the time of Ferdinand's assassination in Sarajevo in 1914.
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Early life Lojka was born on 17 September 1886 in Telč, Moravia, Austria-Hungary to coach driver Václav Lojka and Marie, née Jašová. After graduating from general school in Telč, he trained as a butcher from 1907 to 1909. Lojka joined the Austro-Hungarian Army as a young man. During a maneuver in 1909, he distinguished himself when he recaptured some horses that had gone through in panic, for which he received a reward of 300 crowns. The Bohemian landowner and enthusiastic motorist Franz Graf Harrach, who witnessed this incident, then hired Lojka as his driver – impressed by his courage and efficiency and Lojka worked for Harrach from 1910 to 1914.
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In June 1914, Lojka accompanied his employer and his friend Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, on a trip to Bosnia and Herzegovina. There, on 26 and 27 June, the Archduke, in his capacity as "Inspector of the entire armed forces", took part as an observer in a manoeuvre of the Austro-Hungarian Army outside Sarajevo. A visit to the city itself was planned for 28 June at the end of the trip. For this purpose, Harrach had provided the Archduke with his car, a double phaeton (28/32 hp) from Gräf & Stift, and driver. As a result, Lojka was given the task of picking up the Archduke and his companions at Sarajevo railway station on the morning of 28 June and driving them to the city centre and all other destinations on the day's agenda. In Franz Ferdinand's motorcade, which consisted of seven vehicles, the "heir to the throne" vehicle, with Lojka at the wheel, sitting on the right-hand side, drove in third place. On the way from the railway station to the town hall, there was the first assassination attempt: the young Nedeljko Čabrinović tried to throw a grenade at Franz Ferdinand's car.…
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On 29 June, Lojka and Andreas Freiherr von Morsey identified Princip as the assassin in a confrontation ("It's him, the murderer"). He then appeared as a witness for the prosecution in the Sarajevo trial of the assassins and their accomplices. After the war, Lojka settled in Znojmo, where he ran an inn, which he sold in 1925. He then moved to Brno, where he opened a new inn, which he ran until his death in 1926. In addition, Lojka distinguished himself at this time through a series of interviews and reports in which he described the events of 28 June and thus became a world-famous figure for a time.
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Historical obituary On 1 August 1926, an obituary appeared in the Deutsche Zeitung:"A few days ago, the innkeeper Leopold Lojka died in Brno. The people of Brno commemorated his death as if he had been one of the first in their city. He was not one of the highs of Brno, nor was he a political figure, just an innkeeper whom no one knew but the people of Brno. But years ago his name was mentioned all over the world, for the sake of the few short minutes for which fate had assigned him a place in the focal point of world history: for close behind his back the flames of the world conflagration were fanned. He was the chauffeur of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, he drove his car on the day of the accident.Later, the emperor Karl took Lojka into his service, and when the coup came, he was compensated with 400,000 crowns, with which he bought an inn in Brno. His past made him a well-known figure in the city, and many came to hear him tell of the journey of terror and to see the relics, the bloody suspenders of the Archduke, a piece of a gold bracelet…