KAFKA, BRUNO ALEXANDER

KAFKA, BRUNO ALEXANDER (1881–1931), Czechoslovak jurist. Born in Prague, Kafka was the son of a lawyer and a cousin of franz kafka . He became a professor of law at the German University of Prague in 1918 and was the author of several works on civil and family law, including Die eheliche Guetergemeinschaft (1906) and System des buergerlichen Rechtes (1920). He also served on the commission for the reform of the Czechoslovakian code of civil law as an expert on family law. He was dean of the faculty of law on several occasions and was elected rector of the University of Prague in 1931, but died before taking office. Kafka entered politics in 1917 and became editor of Bohemia, the oldest German-language newspaper in Czechoslovakia. He sat in the Czechoslovakian parliament as a representative of the German Democratic Liberal Party, of which he was a founder. It advocated cooperation among the various national groups in the Republic and secured the cooperation of leading industrialists and intellectuals. Kafka converted to Catholicism. (Yehuda Gera)