Allegedly, Franz Kafka was a vegetarian and he had a vegetarian cookbook which he obtained from or after a stay at a "nature cure" clinic, run by a Dr. Heinrich Lahmann, in Dresden, Germany.
Kafka visited the "Sanatorium" in 1903.
Several newspaper articles (notoriously unreliable) state that Kafka owned the cookbook called "Hygienisches Kochbuch zum Gebrauch für ehemalige Kurgäste von Dr. Lahmanns Sanatorium auf Weißer Hirsch bei Dresden" [Hygienic cookbook for use by former spa guests at Dr. Lahmann's Sanatorium at Weisser Hirsch near Dresden] compiled by Elise Starker, published in 1905.
The problem is that there are many editions of this cookbook. The German National Library (DNB) only has one edition - the 17th edition from 1905. And they've only digitized the table of contents, nothing else. Additionally, several antique booksellers online have various other and much earlier editions available, for example, the 2nd edition from 1893.
Dr. Lahmann himself died in 1905, at the age of 45, of myocarditis as a result of influenza.
According to his Wikipedia entry (in English), "Lahmann recommended a vegetarian diet of fruits, vegetables, nuts, whole grain bread and dairy products, and believed in limiting one's intake of table salt and liquor." (this is also mentioned on the German Wikipedia page) ... and "Lahmann was an advocate of animal rights, refusing to use them in laboratory experiments." (this is NOT mentioned on the German Wikipedia page)
John Davis, well-known vegetarian historian and former "IVU Manager and Historian" (2008), wrote (in approximately 2007/2008):
"[...]
[...] this extract, from The Vegetable Passion by Janet Barkas (New York, 1975), indicates:
[citing Barkas:]
Dr. Heinrich Lahmann (1860-1905) and his sanitorium near Dresden
Another influential figure in these early days of the movement was Dr. Heinrich Lahmann .... Lahmann traced many illnesses to an over-reliance on meat and unnatural medications. One of the first German physicians to use natural healing methods, Lahmann called animals his brothers and refused to use them for his experiments. Instead, he used himself as a guinea pig. His regime consisted of fruits and vegetables [--- this is probably an exaggeration; he appears to have recommended a mostly ovo-lacto- or lacto-vegetarian diet, with little salt and alcohol ---], and fresh air. Water was endorsed for its strengthening powers, and loose and porous clothing were recommended so that air might circulate freely. To provide goods that followed his progressive ideas, he designed shoes, boots [--- probably made of leather? ---], and clothing for all ages. He also recommended pillows filled with plants, rather than feathers.
[...]"
Lahmann also sold
almond milk, apparently.
However, there is another cookbook by Lahmann, called "
Lahmanns Dresdner Kochbuch : Diät im Hause ; hygienisches Kochbuch" [Lahmann's Dresden Cookbook: Diet at home; hygienic cookbook]. I don't know when it was originally published or when it was in use. The German National Library (DNB) again only has
one edition, a partial reprint of the 1928 edition, published in 2001, and has only digitized the
table of contents - or at least that's all they make publicly available.
This cookbook clearly contains many meat dishes.
Lahmann himself was not complete vegetarian, it seems. He did eat meat on Sundays:
A German article from 2005, written by Dr. Marina Lienert, published in a German "physicians' journal", and titled "On the 100th anniversary of the death of Heinrich Lahmann", states:
"....
Heinrich Lahmann (1860 to 1905), the son of a respected Bremen merchant family,
was already familarizing himself with naturopathy in all its facets, including the vegetarian lifestyle and the production of "vegetarian milk" during his medical studies in Leipzig and Heidelberg. This was primarily administered as infant food – as an alternative to cow's milk [!]
. In 1885, he received his doctorate in medicine in Heidelberg. Lahmann quickly acquired all known naturopathic methods and mastered them masterfully, which was the main basis for his outstanding reputation and success, especially with chronically ill patients. To this extent, he followed the same path as Kneipp and Bilz, even in his rejection of all conventional medications. At the same time, however, he attempted – and thus went far beyond Winternitz's scientific approach – to justify the effectiveness of naturopathy with an independent pathological concept. He presented this in 1891 in a monograph entitled 'Dietary Blood Demexing as the Root Cause of All Diseases.' As the title of his main work suggests, he saw 'dietary blood demixing,' [--- it's unclear what he meant ---] that is, incorrect diet, as the 'root cause of all diseases.' Lahmann drew on the ideas of the pioneer of vegetarianism in Germany, the pharmacist Theodor Hahn. As early as the mid-19th century, he had postulated that a vegetarian diet, with as little preparation [i.e., processing] as possible, was the most natural and healthiest. Fresh food [i.e., raw fruit and vegetables], he argued, was preferable, as cooking deprived fruits and vegetables of vital minerals, among other things (Hahn, Theodor 1859). Building on this, Lahmann considered minerals ('nutrient salts') – almost universally underestimated by scientific nutritional research at the time – to be the most qualitatively essential nutritional component and advocated a mineral-rich diet. Vitamins had not yet been discovered and thus could not yet serve as a basis for the extraordinarily positive experiences with a raw food diet. Staple foods should be green and root vegetables, leafy salads, fruit, and nuts – all as raw or lightly cooked as possible. Whole grain products and legumes, as well as milk and dairy products, supplemented the menu.
Lahmann recommended sticking to his diet six days a week, but also eating meat on Sundays and permitting oneself the otherwise frowned-upon foods.
Decades later, a former employee described Lahmann's own lifestyle: 'With what a solemn expression I see in my memory [Lahmann] on Sunday […] sitting with his family at lunch, distributing a chicken leg among his four sons!' [--- So, this does not explicitly state that Lahmann himself ate meat ---] (Neugeboren, L. 1929).
[...]
Lahmann's writings were translated into several languages to make them accessible to his international audience.
Peter Brang [a German professor, Slavicist, -
vegetarian since the age of 1 (apparently, he was raised as a
lacto-vegetarian) - and an expert in vegetarianism in Ukraine and Russia; 1924-2019] has demonstrated (2002) the extent of his [Lahmann's] influence on important Russian proponents of vegetarianism.
The painter Ijla Efimowicz Repin [Ilya Repin, Илья Репин] (1844 to 1930), who belonged to the circle around Leo N. Tolstoy (1928 to 1910) – arguably Russia's most important 'food reformer' –
described his 'conversion' to a vegetarian lifestyle in a letter: 'I only had to give up meat – and things got better. I switched to eggs, butter, cheese, porridge. But no, I got fat, could hardly take off my boots; [...] it became increasingly difficult for me to work ...
And then doctors Lahmann and Pascault came along (they are probably dilettantes) –
they are my saviors who brought me to my senses.' Russian vegetarians' recourse to German ideas was also expressed in their inclusion of the icon of German naturopathy,
Georg Schwenk's painting 'True to Nature,' on the cover of their magazine. This painting [also] hung in the waiting room of Lahmann's sanatorium and depicted him as a savior of the sick, helping them, through purifying and healing water, to live a natural life in an earthly paradise. [...]"
An article in a Swiss newspaper (
Neue Zürcher Zeitung) from 19 August 2025 [
behind a paywall] states that Kafka's father (Hermann Kafka) came from a butcher's family [a kosher butcher]. It also states that Kafka "fletcherized", i.e., he chewed his food slowly - a method (named after the American Horace Fletcher) that was popular among food reformers at the time. The article also claims that Kafka's body weight was 61 kg and his body height was 181 cm - which would mean a body mass index of 18.6 (quite low, but not technically underweight, i.e., <18.5). The article says: "In 1903, Kafka passed his first state law examination. As a reward, the nearly twenty-year-old received a stay at Dr. Lahmann's Dresden sanatorium as a gift from his family. The treatment there consisted primarily of a vegetarian diet, and the newly recovered man decided to continue." The food described at the sanatorium in ovo-lacto vegetarian. Additionally, the article claims that "He [Kafka] wanted to realize one of his last dreams with his girlfriend Dora Diamant in Berlin: to open a restaurant where he himself would be the waiter." ... However, I had heard another version of this story: that Kafka wanted to go to Tel Aviv, open the vegetarian restaurant with Dora and be the waiter there.
Kafka died in 1924, of starvation as a result of tuberculosis - which could not be cured back then. Curiously, Kafka died 11 days after Peter Brang (see above) was born - so for those who believe in reincarnation - they were not the same person. Again, curiously, Dr. Franz Kafka (a lawyer) was a contemporary of the German philosopher, vegetarian, social democrat ("socialist"), and animal rights advocate
Prof. Dr. Leonard Nelson (a legal rights proponent). But I do not think they the two men knew each other (?). Leonard Nelson died of pneumonia. He was not a health fanatic, but an insomniac and chain smoker.
Furthermore, a presentation at the IVU congress in Dresden in 2008 stated that Kafka had a subscription (1911 until his death in 1924) to a magazine in German called "
Reformblatt" [reform paper; or
Reformblatt für Gesundheitspflege, reform paper for health promotion], published by Czech/German IVU member
Moritz Schnitzer. Schnitzer also had an organization called "
Naturheilverein" [nature cure association]. In this same talk, the speaker
estimated that Kafka became a vegetarian around 1909/1910/1911 - rather than around 1903 when he visited Dr. Lahmann's sanatorium in Dresden - and said that Kafka met Moritz Schnitzer in 1911. The presenter also said that Kafka donated two crowns (maybe the equivalent of 10 US dollars today?) to an anti-vivisection campaign in 1911 and that in 1920, already suffering from tuberculosis, Kafka was convinced to eat fish (sardines) as part of his treatment at a sanatorium in the Tatra Mountains (Slovakia/Poland border region). Most of this information is based on Kafka's letters.
Below you can see the original German recipes from
table of contents of the 1905 edition of the vegetarian cookbo
ok ("Hygienisches Kochbuch zum Gebrauch für ehemalige Kurgäste von Dr. Lahmanns Sanatorium auf Weißer Hirsch bei Dresden"). All of the recipes are vegetarian, i.e., ovo-lacto vegetarian, not containing anything derived from dead animals (meat, fish, etc.). One recipe is called "
Blinde Fische" [blind fishes] - however, this is a German "dish" made of Zwieback bread, eggs, milk, salt, and butter/oil. It does not contain fish. The cookbook also contains a recipe called "
Laubfrösche" [
tree frogs], but this too is a vegetarian recipe - it contains spinach, bread rolls, eggs, onions, and parsley.
