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499. Hovory o Praze. Oskar Kafka. Co měl příbuzný spisovatele Franze Kafky společného s automobily,
499. Talks about Prague. Oskar Kafka. What did a relative of the writer Franz Kafka have to do with cars,
Event by: Národní technické muzeum, Juditina věž, Klub Za starou Prahu
Location: National Technical Museum, Kostelní 1320/42, Praha 7
Discussions and lectures
About event
Michal Plavec speaks
Oskar Kafka (*5 December 1882 Prague — †2 December 1957 Prague) came from a well-to-do family in Prague. His father, Angelus, ran a distillery, traded in wine and spirits, and at the beginning of the 20th century he leased a large manor of the Troy castle with a vineyard near St. Clary. He was also one of the witnesses at the birth of the later world-famous writer Franz Kafka, with whose father he was friendly. Both came from Osek in Strakonick. Angelo's youngest descendant, son Oskar, also ran a business, with alternating successes and failures. Already at the end of the 1890s, he became passionate about cycling and rode a Laurin & Klement motorcycle for the first time perhaps as early as 1902 or 1903. He was a lifelong friend of the excellent bicycle, motorcycle and car racer Václav Vondřich. He also raced with him for Laurin & Klement. When news came out in 1909 that the Velox company from Karlsruhe wanted to build heavier air planes, he could not resist and invested capital in this company as a shareholder. The company actually built at least two aircraft, copies of the French Blériot XI aircraft. Kafka crashed with the first of them at the end of January 1910, apparently only while driving, on the Chuchel racetrack. However, Velox already went bankrupt as a company in 1911 and all shareholders lost their capital, including Oskar Kafka. In the interwar period, he was engaged in the car business. If Oskar Kafka had really taken off in January 1910, he could have become the first native of Bohemia to ever take off. But this primacy remained with Ing. Jan Kašpar, although his cousin Eugen Čihák tried to dispute this fact after the Second World War and wanted to appropriate this merit, intentionally or unintentionally.
Oskar Kafka (*5 December 1882 Prague — †2 December 1957 Prague) came from a well-to-do family in Prague. His father, Angelus, ran a distillery, traded in wine and spirits, and at the beginning of the 20th century he leased a large manor of the Troy castle with a vineyard near St. Clary. He was also one of the witnesses at the birth of the later world-famous writer Franz Kafka, with whose father he was friendly. Both came from Osek in Strakonick. Angelo's youngest descendant, son Oskar, also ran a business, with alternating successes and failures. Already at the end of the 1890s, he became passionate about cycling and rode a Laurin & Klement motorcycle for the first time perhaps as early as 1902 or 1903. He was a lifelong friend of the excellent bicycle, motorcycle and car racer Václav Vondřich. He also raced with him for Laurin & Klement. When news came out in 1909 that the Velox company from Karlsruhe wanted to build heavier air planes, he could not resist and invested capital in this company as a shareholder. The company actually built at least two aircraft, copies of the French Blériot XI aircraft. Kafka crashed with the first of them at the end of January 1910, apparently only while driving, on the Chuchel racetrack. However, Velox already went bankrupt as a company in 1911 and all shareholders lost their capital, including Oskar Kafka. In the interwar period, he was engaged in the car business. If Oskar Kafka had really taken off in January 1910, he could have become the first native of Bohemia to ever take off. But this primacy remained with Ing. Jan Kašpar, although his cousin Eugen Čihák tried to dispute this fact after the Second World War and wanted to appropriate this merit, intentionally or unintentionally.