Enough bureaucratic chitchat—let's see what's behind the statistics.

Chapter 1: Birth and childhood

     

Baby Franz

Franz Kafka was born on July 3, 1883, the first child of Hermann and Julie (née Löwy) Kafka.  His parents were upwardly mobile middle class, his father setting up a dry goods store and his mother coming from a well-to-do family.  Hermann Kafka was born September 14, 1852 in the little town of Wossek, about sixty miles south of Prague, near Pisek, the fourth child of a butcher, Jacob Kafka.  His family was poor and at the age of 18 he moved to Prague in hopes of bettering his situation.  He succeded, opening his own store and winning Julie Löwy, born March 23, 1856 in Podebray, the second child of Jakob Löwy, a well-to-do cloth merchant and brewer.  They were married on September 3, 1882 and Franz, named for Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary, came along less than a year later.

Two years later, another son, Georg, was born, but died a year later.  Another son, Heinrich, was born in 1887, but also died less than a year later.  The effect of this on Franz is difficult to assess.  He later stated that the deaths were preventable, due to doctor's errors.  Nevertheless, on September 22, 1889 the first of his sisters, Gabriele "Elli", was born, followed by Valerie "Valli" on September 25, 1890, and Ottilie "Ottla" on October 29, 1892. The children were brought up mostly by governesses, a common practice among the middle and upper classes of the time.  The family moved from apartment to apartment as their financial situation improved, owing to the success of the store.  Young Franz was quiet and withdrawn.  However, he liked to write plays for his sisters to put on in their spare time, and was a voracious reader.

Chapter 2: Education, or "German literature—may it roast in hell." — Kafka letter, 1902

Max Brod

Franz was sent to German schools, not Czech ones, which demonstrates his father's desire for social advancement.  At this time the vast majority of people in Prague spoke Czech, but owing to the power of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the language of the elites was German.  Franz had been speaking mostly Czech as a child (owing to the fact that his governesses were Czech), but learned to master the German tongue early, as reflected in his wonderful handling of it in his stories.  In school he did well, taking classes like Latin, Greek and history. At 13, he had his bar mizvah, which he later remembered as dull and meaningless.  His religious upbringing was limited mostly to that and going to the synagogue four times a year with his father, which didn't give him much to go on. In 1901 he graduated from the Altstädter Gymnasium, and went on to Charles Ferdinand University, where at first he decided to study chemistry, as one of his friends was doing.  This only lasted for two weeks before he switched to law.  The next semester he tried his hand at German Literature, only to find that the professors and the study didn't exactly agree with him, and went back to law, which he said he picked so it would not interfere with his mental life.  At school he met another student a year younger than he was, Max Brod, who was a writer of some note and had his own little circle.  The two would become very close friends for the rest of their lives.  In June 1906, he graduated with a doctorate in law.

Chapter 3:  The Hermann & Co. Asbestos Factory, or Early Adulthood

Franz in 1906

Franz had been trying his hand at serious writing since about 1898, but these early works were destroyed.  Later he began writing more seriously.  His first extant story, Description of a Struggle, dates from 1904-1905.  He got his first job at the Assicurizioni Generali Insurance Company in 1907 but soon left, due to the lengthy hours and intolerable conditions.  Later, in 1908, he began working at the Workers' Accident Insurance Institute, where he would work most of the rest of his life, although only sporadically after 1917, and in June 1922 he was put on "temporary retirement" with a pension.  This job, although not great, had short hours (8 to 2) and so allowed him time to think and write.  In 1911, however, this state of affairs was shattered when his father wanted him to take charge of his brother-in-law Karl Hermann's asbestos factory, which took up a lot of his time until 1917 (when it was shut down) and literally almost drove him to suicide.   He still looked extremely young, sometimes being mistaken for being 15 or 16 when in fact he was 28.  In 1911 he also made a trip to Paris, Italy, and Switzerland with Brod.  He also became very interested in Yiddish theater (think a more melodramatic, more ethnic, shlockier, unintentionally funny sitcom or soap opera), even going so far as to give a talk on Yiddish in 1912 and becoming close friends with Isaac Löwy, a Yiddish theater actor, whom his father considered a good for nothing.  Besides, Hermann Kafka thought his son was too eccentric, with his vegetarianism and quiet nature.

Max Brod convinced Kafka to publish some of his work, and in January 1913 Meditation, a collection of some early short stories and sketches, appeared.  In the meantime he was gathering information for his "American novel," which he began writing in 1912.

Throughout his college days and well into adulthood, Franz was definitely not living the life of a monk. He had numerous affairs and one-night stands with barmaids, waitresses, and shopgirls, not to mention his visits to the whorehouses, activities that most men in Prague at the time also indulged in. However, these relations with women were entirely sexual. They didn't mean anything to him beyond immediate sexual gratification.

The most bizarre aspect of his sex life, though, was that sex was absolutely repulsive and disgusting to him. Hence, the very idea of "normal married life" with a respectable woman was too much for him. "Coitus as the punishment for the happiness of being together," he wrote in his diary, when faced with the prospect of marriage and what that would entail. He would time and again break off engagements, sometimes nearly at the last minute, in order to escape it. Franz seems to have suffered from the malady common to many at that place and time: namely, the virgin/whore complex, where every woman is either a "nice girl" or a slut, with no room in between. So a normal, adult affair with a woman he liked and respected would prove all but impossible, as Felice Bauer soon found out.

Chapter 4: Felice

Felice Bauer

On the evening of August 13, 1912, Franz met Felice Bauer, born November 18, 1887 and living in Berlin, at Brod's house and soon became enamored of her?at least of the image of her he had in his mind.  He began writing her long letters about everything, although mostly about himself and his feelings of inadequacy.  In this first flush of love he wrote "The Judgment" on the night of 22-23 September, which he dedicated to her.  He considered it his first mature work, and proudly read it to his family and friends.  In November and December he wrote "The Metamorphosis."  He also worked at Amerika, or Der Verschollene (The Stoker, the first chapter, appeared separately in book form in 1913); work on it continued sporadically until 1914.

During this time, in September 1913 he went to a sanatorium in Riva, Italy for his health, which had never been extrordinarily good, and there met an 18-year-old Swiss girl, Gerti Wasner, whom he liked very much.  He would do cute things like knock on the ceiling (their rooms were directly on top of each other) and go to the window to talk to her at night, or write fairy tales to read her over breakfast.  Although this affair only lasted the ten days they were there together, it seems to have made a deep impression on him.

Meanwhile the courship by letter of Felice continued.  He would write her every day, sometimes even more often, frequently complaining about how bad or dirty he was, but confident that she would listen to it all.   Eventually he proposed to her in 1913, and she accepted, although in the same letter Franz wrote asking her he also went on and on as to why he would be bad for her.

Felice had a friend, Grete Bloch, born 1892, who also began writing to Franz.  She acted as an intermediary between Franz and Felice; Franz would write to her about some of his problems with Felice, and she would try to help. They wrote each other many letters and built up a kind of friendship. Grete wanted more, though—she seems to have wanted Franz all to herself.

Chapter 5: PRAGUE WRITER IN PATERNITY SUIT SHOCKER!

Grete Bloch—the mother of Kafka's love child?

The Prague Enquirer has recently found out that Franz Kafka, 31, an insurance worker who "scribbles" in his spare time,  has allegedly fathered a son by one Grete Bloch, 22, a friend of his fiancée, Felice Bauer, 26.  Sources tell the Enquirer that the two lovers supposedly sneaked away together during the few times they met on visits, sometimes with Bauer in tow. Kafka and Bloch reportedly have been having a hot-'n-heavy affair, with Bauer knowing nothing of it.  A teary Bloch told the Enquirer that she didn't want to spoil the relationship between Kafka and Bauer, so she kept quiet about her pregnancy and dropped out of sight.  "I love him, but I know what this relationship means to him—escape from his hellish life with his family."

Frankly, I think this whole episode is tabloid material.  I tend to doubt it myself.  For one thing, the only source for it is Grete Bloch herself, in a letter written to a friend 25 years after the fact, in 1940, which Max Brod got ahold of from a friend and printed in the second revised edition of his Kafka biography.  She says she had a little boy in 1914 that died at the age of seven, in 1921.  There is no other concrete evidence for any of this, and Grete said that Franz knew nothing about the child, which seems to be a little unbelievable, since they did in fact keep in contact for a couple of years after. In fact, when Franz, Felice, and Grete met again seven or eight months later, it should be noted that nobody seemed to notice anything amiss! Grete apparently became a bit enamored of him, whom, we must note, she admired fervently.  Wishful thinking, perhaps?  Also, it's hard to believe Kafka, who was deathly afraid of sex anyway and who wrote pages and pages of letters to Felice about why he couldn't bring himself to do the nasty with her, would then go after her friend. Franz was, after all, virtually incapable of a "normal" sexual affair with a "nice girl" like Grete, owing to his rather neurotic attitude towards sex. Unfortunately, we can't ask Grete more about it, since she was beaten to death by the Nazis in 1944.  The conclusion?  There's no way to know for certain, although probably not.

Chapter 6: The Trial, or Tuberculosis Takes its Toll
August 2 — "Germany has declared war on Russia.  Swimming in the afternoon."  — Diary, 1914

Julie Whoryzek, Kafka's 2nd fiancée

Franz broke off the engagement in July of 1914, undergoing a particularly nasty scene in a hotel with Felice, her sister Erna, and Grete Bloch, but nevertheless continued writing to her.  He began writing The Trial that same year, working on it off and on until 1916.  Max Brod hounded Franz to publish some more of his work, and "The Judgment" appeared in 1913.  "The Stoker" also came out in 1913 and "The Metamorphosis" in 1915, put out by Kurt Wolff Verlag, his publisher, which had some faith in him but he remained almost unknown.  In 1915 he won the Theodor Fontane Prize, 800 marks and an ever more slightly hightened reputation. He toyed with the idea of being a soldier after World War I broke out, apparently to prove his manhood, or perhaps to escape his engagement to Felice, even though he professed to hate both sides, but eventually lost interest. In any case, he was exempt from it by his job in the Worker's Accident Insurance Institute, which was partially owned by the government.

Although Franz proposed again to Felice in July 1917 after actually spending a week with her at Marienbad, and later taking a trip with her to Budapest, he began coughing up blood and in August was diagnos ed with tuberculosis.  Always fearful of marriage and sex, this spelled the end of his relationship with Felice, who had had about enough of his crap.  She married another man in 1919 but kept his letters.

After the diagnosis of his tuberculosis, he went to stay with his favorite sister, Ottla, in Zürau, northwest of Prague, which was peaceful, healthy, and most of all for the hypersensitive-to-noise Kafka, quiet. Here he wrote what would become The Blue Octavo Notebooks, a collection of proverbs, thoughts and sketches. After eight months of what he later termed the happiest period in his life, he returned to Prague.

Despite his failing health, he became engaged again, this time to Julie Whoryzek (1891-1939), the daughter of a synagogue janitor and shoemaker, in 1919, causing his father to go on and on about how he would have to sell the store and emigrate to escape the shame to the family name caused by this union, one of the reasons he would write the confessional, lacerating Letter to His Father that same year.  (Incidentally, his father never saw this letter. Franz gave it to his mother so that she would give to him, but after looking at it she thought better of it.)   Nevertheless, Franz went so far as to pick out an apartment for him and Julie and came within a couple of days of the wedding before breaking it off.  A new person had come into his life.

Chapter 7: Milena

Milena Jesenská

Milena Jesenská-Pollak was the wife of one of Franz's friends, Ernst Pollak.  She was born August 10, 1896, and was a strong, intelligent woman who recognized his talent and uniqueness. They began writing to each other in 1920 and very occasionally saw each other.  Milena wasn't Jewish but she did relate to Jews.  Her husband, she said, was unfaithful to her "a hundred times a year," and she found some solace in Franz after separating from Pollak.  Whether or not they were lovers isn't really clear.  They did love and care for each other very much, but Franz's fear of sex remained, which he openly discussed with her. She was very understanding, not just with this matter but with all his problems. They did go to see each other a few times, but again, as with Felice, this was mostly an affair-by-mail. After a while, in 1923,  Milena and Pollak were reconciled, and Franz broke off the relationship, saying they shouldn't see each other or write.  The Castle was written in about nine months of feverish work during 1922.  Kafka's most complex and perhaps strangest work (no mean feat), it's since been interpreted thousands of times in hundreds of different ways, even though (or perhaps because) it remained unfinished. Milena seems to have been a major inspiration, specifically in the character of Frieda, and a café she and her husband frequented in Vienna, the Herrenhof, turns up in the book.

Chapter 8:  Dora
"Ev'ry morning, ev'ry evening, Ain't we got fun?/ Not much money, oh but honey, ain't we got fun?" — 1921

Dora Diamant

In the summer of 1923, owing to his interest in Judaism and Zionism, Franz was trying to learn Hebrew (which had been taught at school but didn't make an impression on him at the time), and went through a couple of teachers before meeting Dora Diamant (sometimes spelled Dymant), an Orthodox Jewish girl from Poland who could read Hebrew fluently.  She purpoted to be about 19 years old, but in fact was more like 24. They met in July in the resort town of Graal-Müritz on the German coast of the Baltic Sea and hit it off more or less immediately.  They became very close, and in September Franz moved out of his parents' apartment, which, aside from a few attempts from 1915-1917 to have his own place, he had never left and moved to Berlin with Dora.  The nature of the relationship between them is not really clear.  Although they shared a two room apartment in a boarding house, Franz seems to have had more of a friendly rather than a sexual relationship with her. Despite their poverty, being unable to pay even the electric bill, he seemed happier than he had ever been in his life, writing "A Little Woman," "The Burrow," and "Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk."

Chapter 9: "My love, my love, my good one!"

The last picture, 1924

As 1924 began, Franz's health got worse and worse.  He was forced to go to a couple of sanatoriums, and his weight plummeted. In April he went to a sanitorium in Kierling, Austria, near Vienna.  He agreed to the publication of "A Hunger Artist," with some other stories, and began proofing the galleys.  He asked Dora's rabbi father for permission to marry her, even though he was almost totally wasted away, and was turned down. But he seemed happy enough with Dora at his bedside.  He died on June 3, 1924.

Dora was inconsolable.  "My love, my love, my good one!" she went around crying (which always breaks my heart and brings a tear to my eye).  The funeral was held on June 10th at the Jewish Cemetery in Prague.

Chapter 10:  Epilogue

Franz's dad and mom lived until 1931 and 1934, respecively.  They were buried in the same plot he was.

His sisters did not meet so kind a fate.  During World War II, Elli and Valli and their families were shipped off to the Lodz ghetto, and apparently died in the uprisings there or were sent to death camps. Ottla separated from her Gentile husband, Josef David, since she felt she had no right to avoid the suffering of her people, and was sent to the Theresienstadt (Terezin) concentration camp in northwestern Bohemia.  She volunteered, in 1943, to help accompany a trainload of children somewhere, which turned out to be Auschwitz. Here's the entry in Auschwitz Chronicle 1939-1945 by Danuta Czech:

        7 October [1943]                 1,260 Jewish children and their 53 care givers are transferred from Theresienstadt in an
RSHA transport. They are killed the same day in the gas chambers.

Felice Bauer moved after her marriage to Switzerland and later, in 1936, to New York. She was widowed in 1937 and later started her own business.  Shocken Books offered to buy the letters from Franz to her in the 50s, but she refused. Finally she gave in and sold them for $5,000.  She needed the money, mostly due to her failing health.  She died in 1960, leaving a son and a daughter.

Milena Jesenská remained a fierce devotee of Franz, writing a lengthy obituary for him and becoming his Czech translator.  She eventually divorced Pollak, remarried, had a daughter, Jana, and divorced again. She worked to improve the situation of the Jews, who were starting to be persecuted by the Nazis.  She was sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp for this, where Margarete Büber-Neumann met her and was impressed enough to eventually write a book about her Kafkas Freundin Milena, translated into English with the ridiculous title, Mistress to Kafka, (now available as Milena, The Tragic Story of Kafka's Great Love).  Milena died from kidney failure there on May 17, 1944. Her daughter wrote a book about her mother in 1968 and was killed in a car wreck in 1981. For more information about Milena, see my Milena Jesenská tribute page.

Dora Diamant never really got over Franz's death.  She eventually married and had a daughter, only to have her husband deported by the Nazis and never heard from again.  She sometimes talked about Franz, awestruck and quite possesive, calling herself Dora Kafka and complaining that his instructions to burn his works should have been carried out.  She moved to London with her daughter, where she died August 15, 1952. Her daughter Marianne died in 1982.

Max Brod didn't carry out his friend's instructions to burn his works, of course (or you wouldn't be here looking at this page).  He edited and had published virtually everything Franz wrote.  In 1939 he moved to Tel Aviv in Palestine, taking with him almost all of Kafka's manuscripts, in order to avoid the Nazis, where he lived until his death in 1968, with a reputation as either the man who saved Kafka for the world or as the man who disregarded his friend's dying wishes.

Franz Kafka has become an icon of sorts, emblematic of modern times.  His popularity increased exponentially after the publication of his stories in the 20s and 30s, especially in the English translations done by the Muirs.  He is now an institution, his own adjective.  About ten years ago, somebody bought the manuscript of The Trial for close to two million dollars.  Not quite as good as Stephen King or John Grisham, but not bad for an uncompleted manuscript meant for the flames.  (Just imagine the royalties!) Few writers have had such an effect on their times as he has.