After a Kafkaesque legal battle, disputed documents from Kafka's closet confidant, Max Brod, are now part of the Israel National Library's collection. Defying Kafka's dying wish, Brod turned him into a famous writer.
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They were stored in an Israeli refrigerator, stolen and later uncovered in an art forgery warehouse in Germany, and then the subject of a criminal investigation and a court case.
Now, the last batch of personal papers belonging to Max Brod, one of Czech writer Franz Kafka's most intimate friends and his literary executor, have been returned to the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem after a years-long struggle to complete the archive of Brod's estate.
The documents that had been kept for decades in a Swiss vault include three different draft versions of Kafka's story Wedding Preparations in the Country, a notebook in which he practiced Hebrew, hundreds of personal letters to Brod and other friends, sketches and drawings, travel journals and thoughts he noted down.
The Israeli National Library displayed some of Kafka's unpublished writings and drawings at a press conference in Jerusalem on Wednesday. "After seeing materials including Kafka's Hebrew notebook and letters about Zionism and Judaism, it is now clearer than ever that the National Library in Jerusalem is the rightful home for the Brod and Kafka papers," David Blumberg, chairman of the National Library of Israel board of directors said at the press conference.
Brod estate: The missing link
Those documents, as well as thousands of papers transferred in May from Germany, were the "missing link in Max Brod's written estate," Stefan Litt, archivist and humanities curator at the Israeli National Library told DW.
Brod played a pivotal role in establishing the German-speaking Kafka as one of the 20th-century's most important writers. Before dying in 1924, Kafka told Brod to burn all his writing, stories and personal diaries alike. Brod defied Kafka's wish and went on to publish many of the author's manuscripts posthumously, including his novel The Trial.
"One of the very few persons who was totally convinced about [Kafka's] literature quality was Max Brod, and he was emphasizing very enthusiastically time and again how important Kafka is for literature and how important it is to read him," said Litt.
'The Trial' by Franz Kafka
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Flight, theft and discovery
Born in Prague in 1884, Brod fled the Nazi regime for Tel Aviv in 1939. After dying there in 1968, he bequeathed his personal papers — including Kafka's manuscripts — to his secretary, Esther Hoffe. Following her death in 2007, the estate went to her daughter, who reportedly stored part of them in a turned-off refrigerator.
Over time the estate was divided up between three locations: Hoffe's daughter's apartment, an Israeli bank vault and a bank in Zurich, Switzerland.
Then, between 2009 and 2012, the documents stored in the apartment were stolen. They next turned up in 2013, after two Israelis approached the German Literary Archives in Marbach, a small city in southwest Germany, saying they had a collection of unpublished documents belonging to Brod.
A police investigation located the documents in suitcases at a storage facility in Wiesbaden in northwest Germany that was used by an international art forgery ring. Police seized the documents after their significance became clear, and a January court case ruled the collection must be returned to Israel's National Library.
Correspondence as insight into literature
Before obtaining the last files from the estate, the library already had over 40,000 other documents belonging to Brod in its collections.
The papers could help shine light on the cultural, intellectual and literary currents that both Kafka and Brod were a part of at the time. "It is very important to have complete personal archives, as much as possible," Litt told DW, explaining that the documents contribute to building a wider context and can also help researchers.
"When you read a novel or a story, you will get the idea that the author was trying to deliver in his art piece to the public, but correspondence usually gives you much better insight and background in the whole process of developing ideas and bringing them into literary pieces," Litt explained.
Franz Kafka, the tormented poet
Prague was a European center of culture in Kafka's day. The city and its people had an impact on the poet - both psychologically and intellectually. It was in Prague that he suffered, wrote, and rose to fame.
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The poet
Franz Kafka was born in Prague on July 3, 1883. With the sensitivity of the poet he was, he soaked up the atmosphere of the city, learning to both love and fear it, and developed a feel for the absurdities of the modern era. In Prague, Kafka was influenced by the people and books he encountered, but also had an influence on those around him.
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Metamorphosis
A man wakes up in the morning and discovers that he has turned into a repulsive, monstrous vermin. It's the end of his existence as a social being. He loses his job and is rejected by his family. Psychologically, however, the character, named Gregor Samsa, is just the same. In "Metamorphosis," Kafka poses the question: What makes a human a human?
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The Trial
One day, Josef K. is called to appear at court. But for what? He doesn't know. Josef K. only knows that the wheels of the complicated judicial system have begun to turn and he finds himself caught between them, hoping for answers. What he does learn is that the state is almighty, and he, the human, is tiny. Pictured is a scene from Orson Welles's 1962 film version of "The Trial" (Studiocanal).
Image: Studiocanal
The Castle
Working as a surveyor, K. tries to enter a castle in the countryside. He's not permitted to enter the building itself, but is allowed to stay in the surrounding village. But why are the villagers so afraid of the castle owner, even though he doesn't harm them? "The Castle" is a novel about the psychology of fear. Pictured is a scene from the stage version, performed in Berlin's Deutsches Theater.
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The metropolis
In Kafka's day, Prague was a European center of culture. It had been an important city in the Habsburg Empire and, around the year 1900, was a cosmopolitan, multicultural metropolis and hub of German and Czech literature. Many authors, like Kafka, were fluent in both languages. The city and its people influenced the poet both psychologically and intellectually.
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The overbearing father
Stately and self-confident, Herman Kafka (1852-1931) was a butcher by trade. In his family, his word was law. In his famous letter to his father from 1919, the young Kafka worked through his early childhood, referring to himself as "skinny, weak, thin" and his father as "strong, tall, wide." But the son rebelled in his writing, often turning figures of strong men into caricatures.
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A state for the Jews
In what was then Bohemia, staunch nationalists would regularly gather for anti-Semitic demonstrations. That piqued the interest of some secular Jews, like Franz Kafka, in Theodor Herzl's idea of a Jewish state in Palestine. Kafka had planned a trip to Palestine, but had to cancel due to poor health. Instead he spent the last year of his life learning Hebrew.
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The unlikely friend
Long summer afternoons on the Vitava River and long night in Prague's pubs - it was with his friend Franz Werfel that Kafka experienced his city's magic. Slightly older than Kafka, Werfel had already become a literary star. His friend's success didn't leave Kafka cold. "I hate W.," he wrote. "He is healthy, young and wealthy, and I am different in everything." Nevertheless, they remained friends.
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The philosopher
In the summer of 1900, Kafka is numbed by Friedrich Nietzsche's texts and can hardly continue writing himself. But he overcomes his awe of the philosopher's work and takes up the themes of arrogance before the church and state, and the stiff educated middle class in his own writing.
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The fiancée
"Almost broken nose. Blonde, somewhat straight, unattractive hair, strong chin." That's how Kafka described Felice Bauer in 1912, shortly after their first encounter. Nevertheless, she fascinated him and he would write 500 letters to her. They were engaged twice, but Kafka backed out both times. Finally, Bauer immigrated to the United States, far away from the noncomittal poet.
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Brother in spirit
In his early life, Sören Kierkegaard watched a number of his family members die of various illnesses, which cast a bleak tone over his philosophy. Kafka was fascinated by Kierkegaard's work, noting in 1913 how similar it was to his own. Even their private lives had parallels: The Dane was also unhappily in love.
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The doctor
Kafka respected Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud, writing in 1919 that "the unheard of" could be read about in his work. But the poet was doubtful that Freud's methods could actually heal people. Though modern psychology had shown results, "nothing has really happened yet," wrote Kafka.
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The publisher
Publisher Kurt Wolff worked with the young talent of his day. But he had a difficult time with Kafka. In 1912, Wolff published Kafka's first book of stories with a print run of 800 copies, but it didn't sell well. "Eleven books have been sold," noted Kafka several weeks after its release. "I bought 10 myself. I'd like to know who bought the eleventh."
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The mentor
Kafka's self-confidence was chronically low, but his friend Max Brod encouraged him time and again. Still, in 1924, the year he would die, Kafka asked his friend to burn all of his manuscripts. Brod decided not to fulfill his dying wish. Instead he published Kafka's works, rescuing some of the most important literary treasures of the 20th century.
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The biographer
Historian Saul Friedländer saw himself in Kafka's life story. Like the poet, Friedländer's father had also studied at Charles University in Prague. And like Kafka's sisters, the historian's parents had died in Nazi concentration camps. Friedländer wrote one of the most definitive biographies of the tormented poet, Franz Kafka.