Felice Bauer

Felice Bauer ( born November 18, 1887 in Neustadt in Upper Silesia, † October 15, 1960 in Rye, New York, USA) was Franz Kafka's first fiancée.

Origin

Felice was born into a Jewish middle-class family. The father worked as an insurance salesman, while the mother was the daughter of a dyer. She had four siblings: Else (1883-1952), Ferdinand (1884-1952), Erna (1885-1978) and Antonie (1892-1918), called Toni. 1899 moved her family from Silesia to Berlin.

Relationship with Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka met Felice on the evening of August 13, 1912 during a visit to his friend Max Brod know whose sister Sophie was married to a cousin of Felice Bauer. Felice, who had dropped out in 1908 started trading education because of financial troubles of her father, since 1909 worked as a stenographer in a Berlin record company. A year later, she joined the Carl Lindström AG, where she was promoted after a short time. When she met Kafka, they had risen already authorized signatory. After Franz and Felice had twice encrypt and again entlobt, they separated permanently in 1917 in Prague.

Marriage, family and married life

Unlike Franz Kafka they wore their good professional position early on a great responsibility for the upkeep of the family. Soon after the final termination of the relationship with Franz Kafka, she married in 1919 to 14 years older bank chief clerk Moritz Marasse. From this marriage two children were born: the son of Heinz (1920-2012) and daughter Ursula ( 1921-1966 ). In 1931 the family moved to Switzerland, from where they emigrated to the United States in 1936. 1950 her husband died. In later years, she was forced by an illness and the resulting financial difficulties to sell their correspondence with Franz Kafka to the publisher Salman Schocken. Some of these letters was published in 1967 as Letters to Felice and 1973 in an English translation.

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