Jacques Johan Mogendorff

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Jacques Johan Mogendorff (born December 12, 1898 in Groenlo , Netherlands , † August 1, 1961 in Wassenaar , Netherlands) was a Dutch dealer. He is considered the inventor of the board game Stratego, which has sold millions of times .

Life

Mogendorff married Sientjen Vromen on September 14, 1922 and had two sons. Mogendorff lived his entire life in different cities in the Netherlands; only when he worked as a sales representative for Kaufmann - an international company for animal skins and pelts - did he live abroad.

Mogendorff invented Stratego at the kitchen tableduring the Second World War to entertain his two sons. This is a similar game to the game Jeu de bataille avec pièces mobiles sur damier ,patented in 1909, which appeared in 1910 as L'Attaque in France and later in Great Britain. Other games with a similar gameplay are Auf zum Sturm by Hausser (Germany) and Flint's Fist by Thomas de la Rue (England), which were produced during and after the First World War .

On April 20, 1942, the Stratego brand was registered for the Dutch company Van Perlstein & Roeper Bosch . Since Mogendorff was Jewish, he could not have the trademark registered on his name due to the German occupation. It is historically unclear whether Stratego was still produced during wartime. The production from 1946 is proven.

In 1943 the Mogendorff family was deported to the Westerbork transit camp in the Netherlands and in June 1944 to the German Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. On April 13, 1945 the family in Bergen-Belsen was liberated. The members of the Mogendorff family recovered from the serious illnesses caused by mistreatment.

After the war, Mogendorff licensed Stratego between 1946 and 1951 to the Dutch publisher Smeets & Schippers , which produced the game from 1946. In 1958 the rights registered to Van Perlstein & Roeper Bosch were transferred to Stratego to Mogendorff. Thereupon Mogendorff granted on June 10, 1958 a Europe-wide license to the Dutch game publisher Hausemann & Hötte (Jumbo games). The game was very successful: In the first year, 15,000 games were sold across Europe and in 1959 the license was expanded into a worldwide license. Hausemann & Hötte then issued a sub-license to Milton Bradley in 1961 .

On August 1, 1961, Mogendorff died at the age of 62 from the long-term effects of the abuse he had suffered.

criticism

It is unclear whether Mogendorff really invented the game, or whether in 1958 he only achieved that the Stratego brand, issued in 1942, was transferred to him.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Jacques Johan MOGENDORFF 1898–1961 ( memento from December 2, 2015 in the web archive archive.today ) at gershon-lehrer.be
  2. ↑ Patent FR396795 : Jeu de bataille avec pièces mobile sur damier. ‌
  3. ↑ L'Attaque in the board game database BoardGameGeek (English)
  4. ↑ Stratego at the European Game Collectors Guild
  5. ↑ a b 50 jaar Stratego - een zegetocht! ( Memento from March 25, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) at Jumbo (Dutch)
personal data
SURNAME Mogendorff, Jacques Johan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mogendorff, Jacques
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch merchant and game designer
DATE OF BIRTH December 12, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Groenlo , Netherlands
DATE OF DEATH August 1, 1961
Place of death Wassenaar , Netherlands