Johannes Minckwitz

This article explains the chess player, for his father and writer of the same name see Johannes Minckwitz (writer) .

Johannes Minckwitz
Association	German Empire
Born	April 11, 1843 Leipzig
Died	May 20, 1901 Biebrich
Best Elo rating	2578 (May 1882) ( historical rating )

Johannes Minckwitz (born April 11, 1843 in Leipzig , † May 20, 1901 in Biebrich ) was a German chess master , composer and journalist.

Life

Minckwitz was a son of the writer and philologist Johannes Minckwitz . His father determined a commercial career for him, which later became torture for him. At the age of 15 he joined a wholesaler, later became a bank accountant and authorized representative, then head of an industrial establishment. For a while he was an independent businessman, then he turned to the profession of writer and poet. His real passion was chess. He received his first chess lessons from his father, with further suggestions from Count Woldemar Vitzthum von Eckstädt, Otto Wigand , Hermann Hirschbach and the Illustrirte Zeitung .

The master's first chess problems appeared as early as 1863. in the following years he received numerous awards for his compositions. He also appeared as a chess player around this time. At the tournament of the West German Chess Federation in Barmen in 1869 he was second behind Adolf Anderssen . In Krefeld 1871 he was third behind Louis Paulsen and Adolf Anderssen. In 1880 he won together with Adolf Schwarz and Miksa Weiß in Graz . He had previously lost to Adolf Schwarz (1878) in a competition in Frankfurt am Main with 4: 5 (+2 = 4 −3).

In the years 1865 to 1876 and from 1879 to 1886 Minckwitz was the editor of the Deutsche Schachzeitung , as well as a diligent author of chess books .

Around 1883 a mental illness became noticeable. He became ambitious, tried to become a landowner and to ennoble himself. In public he brought out the connection with the Saxon noble family of the same name, which his father had already claimed, by accepting the predicate of excited. Later Minckwitz was transferred to a mental hospital . From 1894 he was no longer admitted to chess tournaments, but he continued to work as a writer for a long time. In distress, he was run over by a tram in 1901 - the circumstances made it appear possible to commit suicide - and died the next day.

One line in the Spanish game , namely the Minckwitz variant with the ECO key C67, was named after Johannes Minckwitz.

Works

• The ABC of the game of chess , Leipzig 1879.
• Humor in chess , Leipzig 1885.
• The decisive battle between W. Steinitz and JH Zukertort for the championship of the world , Leipzig 1886 (reprint Zurich 1986, ISBN 3-283-00122-7 ).
• The little chess king , Leipzig 1889.
• also: tournament books on Krefeld 1871, Düsseldorf 1876, Cologne 1877, Frankfurt am Main 1878, Hamburg 1885.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Austrian Reading Hall , Volume 7, No. 74, February 1887, p. 49 f.

swell

• Deutsche Schachzeitung , No. 6, June 1901, obituary

Web links

• Literature by and about Johannes Minckwitz in the catalog of the German National Library
• Janine Kallenbach: Minckwitz, Johannes (Hans) von . In: Institute for Saxon History and Folklore (Ed.): Saxon Biography .
• Compositions by Johannes Minckwitz on the PDB server