German Chess Federation in Czechoslovakia
The German Chess Federation in Czechoslovakia was an independent chess federation of the Germans in the Sudetenland from 1921 to 1939 and was incorporated into the Greater German Chess Federation as a regional association from 1939 . After the Second World War it was disbanded with the expulsion of the Sudeten Germans .
prehistory
Germans had come to the then sparsely populated Sudetenland since the 12th century to settle there at the invitation of Bohemian rulers. In 1620, the victory of the Catholic side in the Battle of the White Mountain led to re-Catholicization and the establishment of absolutism in the Austrian and Bohemian countries .
The Prague Chess Club was founded in Café Regnehmer in 1866 , other German clubs were formed, but a Czech club did not follow suit until eighteen years later. The founding of a club in Karlsbad in 1899 by Viktor Tietz led to the Karlsbad chess tournament only a few years later. In 1905 the Czech Chess Federation was founded, which regularly organized its own championships, but Germans and Czechs took part in each other's tournaments.
After the creation of Czechoslovakia in 1918, the Sudeten Germans were assigned to the new state on September 10, 1919 by the Treaty of Saint-Germain , in which they now formed the minority. To counteract their public repression, they founded their own interest groups.
From foundation to dissolution
On March 27, 1921, the German Chess Association in Czechoslovakia was founded in Aussig and Viktor Tietz was elected President. He was followed from 1931 to 1938 by District Judge Josef Schindler . After being incorporated into the Greater German Chess Federation in 1938, Franz Herzog and, from 1941, Karl König became club leader. The official announcement organ from 1935 to 1938 was the Sudeten German Schachecho .
The seven founding associations grew to 25 member associations in the following year. In 1938 the association had 70 clubs and over 1,000 individual members. From 1922 to 1938, championship tournaments were held annually at congresses, after the incorporation into the Greater German Chess Federation, only one congress was successful in 1941. In 1922, 1933 and 1934 international tournaments were held at the same time.
In 1925 Josef Lerch bequeathed his chess library, which comprised more than a thousand volumes and was housed in the Aussig city library, to the association.
After Konrad Henlein's Sudeten German Party won the parliamentary elections in 1935, the latter tried to join Germany, which had been ruled by the National Socialists since 1933 . At the congress of the German Chess Association in Gablonz in 1938, an application to incorporate the chess association into Henlein's movement was enthusiastically accepted, and it subsequently became a regional association of the Greater German Chess Association.
After National Socialist Germany received the Sudetenland in 1938, there were decisive changes: The 50,000 Jews in the Sudetenland lost their homeland, at the beginning of November 1938 the Hungarian and Polish areas of Czechoslovakia went to the corresponding countries. On March 15, 1939, the Nazi occupation of the remaining Bohemia and Moravia began, after which it was appointed Reich Protectorate . Gauleiter Henlein managed to hold a congress of the German Chess Association in 1941.
After the end of the Second World War , the Sudetenland immediately returned to Czechoslovakia. By December 1946, the 2.8 million Sudeten Germans had to leave the country without compensation. This also meant the end of the German Chess Association in Czechoslovakia, whose book collection in Aussig was looted.
Congresses
Championship tournaments
| year | host | Tournament winner |
|---|---|---|
| 1922 | Teplitz-Schönau | Hans Thanhofer |
| 1923 | Aussig | Karl Gilg |
| 1924 | Karbitz | Karl Gilg |
| 1925 | Braunau | Josef Lokvenc / Karl Gilg |
| 1926 | Reichenberg | Rudolf Bauer |
| 1927 | Eger | Serious room |
| 1928 | Moravian Schönberg | Karl Gilg |
| 1929 | Gruesome | Salo Flohr |
| 1930 | Bilin | Heinz Josef Foerder |
| 1931 | Brno | Salo Flohr |
| 1932 | Schluckenau | Heinz Josef Foerder / Karl Gilg |
| 1933 | Moravian-Ostrava | Ernst Klein |
| 1934 | Bad Liebwerda | G. Reiter / J. Tomy |
| 1935 | Constantine Bath | Karl Gilg |
| 1936 | Reichenberg | Friedrich Sämisch |
| 1937 | Teplitz-Schönau | Karl Gilg |
| 1938 | Gablonz | Karl Gilg |
| 1941 | Reichenberg | Josef Althoff |
International tournaments
| year | host | Tournament winner |
|---|---|---|
| 1922 | Teplitz-Schönau | Richard Réti / Rudolf Spielmann |
| 1933 | Moravian-Ostrava | Ernst Grünfeld |
| 1934 | Bad Liebwerda | Salo Flohr |
literature
- Michael Ehn : The lost chess federation. On the history of the "German Chess Association in Czechoslovakia" . In: KARL 01/2012, pp. 18-21.
- Josef Schindler: German chess in the Sudetenland. In: German chess sheets . Volume 27, No. 21, November 1, 1938, pp. 321–322.
- Peter Werner: Chess in the Eastern Territories. IV. Sudetenland. In: Alfred Diel : Chess in Germany. Festival book on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Deutscher Schachbund e. V. 1877-1977. Rau, Düsseldorf 1977. ISBN 3791901672 , pp. 130-134.