Changing minds, saving lives: Franz Kafka as a key industrial reformer

East European Quarterly

Volumn 35, Issue 4, 2001, Pages 473-482

  Wasserman, Martin ^a  

^a USA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; CONSUMER ADVOCACY; CZECHOSLOVAKIA; ECONOMICS; EDUCATION; EMPLOYMENT; ETHNOLOGY; HEALTH INSURANCE; HISTORY; INDUSTRY; INSURANCE; LEGAL ASPECT; POLICY; POLITICAL SYSTEM; PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT; SAFETY; SOCIAL CHANGE; SOCIAL WELFARE;

CONSUMER ADVOCACY; CZECHOSLOVAKIA; ECONOMICS; EMPLOYMENT; HISTORY, 20TH CENTURY; INDUSTRY; INSURANCE BENEFITS; INSURANCE, ACCIDENT; INSURANCE, HEALTH; PUBLIC POLICY; SAFETY; SOCIAL CHANGE; SOCIAL WELFARE; SOCIALISM;

EID: 33748154634     PISSN: 00128449     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (42)

1. Both quotes can be found in Angel Flores and Homer Swander, Franz Kafka Today (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1958), p. 1.
2. Pavel Eisner, Franz Kafka and Prague (New York: Golden Griffin Books, 1950), pp. 72-74.
3. Kafka himself writes of his great sympathy for the workers employed by his father in Franz Kafka, Letter to His Father (New York: Schocken Books, 1966), pp. 55 and 57.
4. Ronald Hayman, Kafka: A Biography (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 30.
5. Eisner, p. 50; and Johann Bauer, Kafka and Prague (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1971), pp. 100-101. It should be mentioned here that the Czech National Socialist Party bore absolutely no resemblance to the German "National Socialists" of the Third Reich.
6. For a summary of how Kafka's work experiences inspired the novel Amerika, see Franz Baumer, Franz Kafka (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Company, 1971), pp. 58-62.
7. For interpretations which view Amerika as a work of anti-capitalism, see Wilhelm Emrich, Franz Kafka: A Critical Study of His Writings (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Company, 1968), pp. 276-315;
8. and Klaus Hermsdorf, "Kafka's Amerika," Frank Kafka: An Anthology of Marxist Criticism, ed. Kenneth Hughes (Hanover, NH: University of New England Press, 1981), pp. 22-37.
9. Indeed, the entire issue of the socialist periodical Kmen was devoted to Kafka's story, "The Stoker." On this matter, see Bauer, p. 174.
10. Eduard Goldstücker, "Franz Kafka in the Prague Perspective: 1963," Franz Kafka: An Anthology of Marxist Criticism, ed. Kenneth Hughes (Hanover, NH: University of New England Press, 1981), p. 73.
11. These quotes can be found in Gustav Janouch, Conversations with Kafka (New York: New Directions, 1971), p. 103, 131, 151.
12. For a commentary on one of the quotes (p. 151 above), see Peter Heller, Dialectics and Nihilism (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1966), pp. 240-242.
13. For works on Lily Braun's life and writings, see Alfred G. Meyer, The Feminism and Socialism of Lily Braun (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1985);
14. and Alfred G. Meyer, Selected Writings on Feminism and Socialism by Lily Braun (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1987).
15. Klaus Wagenbach, Franz Kafka: Eine Biographie Seiner Jugend (Bern: Francke Verlag, 1958), p. 252.
16. These quotes can be found in Franz Kafka, Letters to Felice (New York: Schocken Books, 1973), pp. 454 and 499.
17. Ritchie Robertson, Kafka: Judaism. Politics, and Literature (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), pp. 157-158.
18. Max Brod, Über Franz Kafka (Frankfurt: Fischer Verlag, 1977), p. 298.
19. Franz Kafka, The Blue Octavo Notebooks (Cambridge, MA: Exact Change Books, 1991), p. 56.
20. Wagenbach, Franz Kafka: Eine Biographie Seiner Jugend, pp. 162-163.
21. For an abbreviated history of the Workmen's Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia, see Frederick Karl, Franz Kafka: Representative Man (New York: Ticknor and Fields, 1991), pp. 219-224;
22. or Ernst Pawel, The Nightmare of Reason: A Life of Franz Kafka (New York: Vintage Books, 1984), pp. 183-189.
23. A more comprehensive history of the Workmen's Institute can be found in Franz Kafka, Amtliche Schriften (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1984), pp. 267-281.
24. Pawel, pp. 184-185.
25. Klaus Wagenbach, Franz Kafka: Pictures of a Life (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984), p. 104.
26. The stated hypothesis that an influential reformer should be able to communicate his thoughts in an effective manner can be found in Patrick Pringle, Great Ideas in Social Reform (London: Robert Maxwell, 1968), pp. 11-14.
27. Pawel, pp. 184-185.
28. Karl, pp. 219-221.
29. Pawel, p. 184. Kafka's entire journal article, where he persuasively argues for each of the insurance compensation changes advocated by the Workmen's Institute, can be found in Wagenbach, Franz Kafka: Eine Biographie Seiner Jugend, pp. 326-337.
30. For another example of Kafka's writing that strongly supports the Workmen's Institute reforms, see Kafka, Amtliche Schriften, p. 154-162.
31. Hayman, p. 78.
32. Karl, p. 223. The two original reports that Kafka wrote on his wood-planing machine modification can be found in Wagenbach, Franz Kafka: Eine Biographie Seiner Jugend, pp. 314-325;
33. and Kafka, Amtliche Schriften, pp. 134-141.
34. An English-language translation of the latter, complete with Kafka's illustrations of his safety device, can be found in Klaus Wagenbach, Kafka's Prague: A Travel Reader (Woodstock, NY: The Overlook Press, 1996), pp. 82-84.
35. For Kafka's complete account of alcohol-related accidents in the mining industry, see Kafka, Amtliche Schriften, pp. 243-267.
36. A brief English-language summary of this account is given in Jan Hancil, Kafka and Prague (Prague: Centrum Franze Kafky, 1998), pp. 15-16.
37. For the complete text of Kafka's petition letters urging the construction of a neurological/psychiatric hospital, see Kafka, Amtliche Schriften, pp. 281-298.
38. An English-language translation of a 1916 letter can be found in Kafka, Letters to Felice, pp. 580-581. Because of the political situation in Bohemia during World War I, there was a German-nationalistic tone in Kafka's early petition letters. However, as the war drew to a close, the letters which Kafka wrote as well as the hospital's policy on admissions and treatment, favored all citizens residing in what was soon to be an independent Czechoslovakia. On this matter, see note 27 below.
39. Bauer, pp. 116-120; and Kafka, Amtliche Schriften, pp. 281-294.
40. Pawel, p. 188.
41. Ibid., pp. 370-371 and 385-386
42. Both obituary excerpts can be found in Bauer, p. 174.