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Felice Bauer (18 November 1887 – 15 October 1960) was a fiancée of Franz Kafka.

Early life

Felice Bauer was born in Neustadt in Oberschlesien (today Prudnik) in a Jewish family. Her father was an insurance agent, her mother was the daughter of a dyer. She had four siblings: Else (1883–1952), Ferdinand (1884–1952), Erna (1885–1978) and Antonie (called Toni, 1892–1918). In 1899 the family moved to Berlin.

Felice had begun attending a Handelsschule, a vocational school for commerce, but had to give it up in 1908 because her family could not afford it. From 1909 she worked as a stenographer at a Berlin record company. One year later, she moved to the Carl Lindström Company, where she was promoted after a short while to Prokuristin. She contributed substantially to the income of her family.

Kafka

Felice met Franz Kafka on 13 August 1912, when he visited his friend Max Brod, whose sister Sophie was married to a cousin of Felice Bauer. They were engaged twice and finally separated in 1917 in Prague. Kafka dedicated his short story Das Urteil (The Judgment, literally: The sentence) to her. His letters to her were published as Letters to Felice.

Later life

In 1919, she was married to Moritz Marasse, a bank employee. They had two children, Heinz (born 1920) and Ursula (1921–1966). In 1931, they settled in Switzerland, in 1936 in the United States. Her husband died in 1950. She sold her correspondence with Kafka to the publisher Salman Schocken in 1955. She died in Rye, New York.

The musician Adam Green is a great-grandson of Felice Bauer.

Literature

• Elias Canetti: Der andere Prozeß. Kafkas Briefe an Felice, Leipzig, Reclam 1985.
• Loius Begley: Die ungeheure Welt, die ich im Kopfe habe. Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, München 2008, ISBN 978-3-421-04362-7, p. 125

References

1. Kafka, Franz (1995). Nahum N. Glatzer (ed.). The Complete Stories. Schocken Books New York. ISBN 0-8052-1055-5.

External links

• Literature by and about Felice Bauer in the German National Library catalogue

Template:Persondata

• Franz Kafka
• 1887 births
• 1660 deaths