Julius Mendheim

August Julius Mendheim (* around 1781 ; † August 25, 1836 in Berlin ) was a German chess player and problem composer . He is considered the first Prussian chess master and forerunner of the Berlin chess school .

biography

Very little is known about the life of Mendheim, who came from a Jewish family. He is said to have been in Berlin since 1810. Mendheim was allegedly a merchant, but in the few written references he is also referred to as a " particulier " or privateer . Apparently his financial circumstances allowed him to devote himself entirely to the game of chess. In later years Mendheim complained about his poor health, which prevented him from working. No portrait has survived.

Chess publications

In the publishing house of Alexander Mosar (1772-1869), known as a chess teacher, he published a paperback for chess fans in 1814 . The font included a collection of Mendheim's chess compositions. In 1832 he had a sequel at the Trautwein publishing house under the title Tasks for Chess Players . The appendix to this book contained an annotated long-distance game between the chess clubs of Berlin and Breslau (namely the first game of the competition mentioned below).

Berlin chess master

From the 1820s onwards, Mendheim was arguably the leading German chess master. However, few details are known about his gaming practice.

In Berlin, the two oldest German chess clubs were founded in the first half of the 19th century , to which Mendheim was closely connected. Although he was not a regular member, he was a frequent guest of the Berlin chess club (which existed between 1803 and 1847) , which was also called the Big or Old Club . His opponents included the sculptor Gottfried Schadow and other club members. In April 1829, Schadow proposed Mendheim as an honorary member and probably accepted it.

The chess club assigned him the task of independently leading the correspondence competitions agreed with Breslau (1829 to 1833) and Hamburg (1833 to 1836). Both games against Breslau ended victorious. The second competition against the Hamburg chess club was less favorable. Hamburg won the first game, the second ended in a draw . Furthermore, a long distance game Mendheim against the strong player Angerstein from Brandenburg is preserved. It arose from a deviation in the first Breslau game, in which Black (Angerstein) continued differently from move 21 and won.

Finally, in 1830, Mendheim became a member of the Berlin Chess Society founded three years earlier . He must have played many times with Ludwig Bledow , the founder of the Berlin chess school . How great his influence on Bledow was is not clear. Mendheim is said to have been influenced to a greater extent by the positional teachings of the famous French master Philidor , which had dominated the development of chess for a long time. The younger masters Wilhelm Hanstein , Carl Mayet and Bernhard Horwitz met Bledow while Mendheim was still alive. The chess player, whom Tassilo von Heydebrand and the Lasa praised as the “brilliant Mendheim”, was without a doubt a pioneer of the Berlin chess school.

Importance as a chess composer

Mendheim's praise also extended to his services in the field of chess composition. In this respect, Mendheim can be seen as a continuation of the tradition of the medieval Mansuben and Philipp Stammas . In contrast to the modern task type, the first section of his paperback for chess fans contained twenty tasks that require a pawn mate, the second included 31 problems with different conditions. In contrast, Mendheim could have mostly omitted the conditions in the later sequel, the tasks for chess players , because here the only gain coincided with the mating lead. Mendheim said of these problems that "most of them can be solved according to the usual chess laws". With his direct mating problems and a series of endgame studies , Mendheim was also on the threshold of a new era in the field of chess composition.

'Tasks for Chess Players' 1832

	a	b	c	d	e	f	G	H
8th									8th
7th									7th
6th									6th
5									5
4th									4th
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	G	H

Checkmate in seven moves

The series of chess commands is reminiscent of a mansube and ends with a double cross chess .

Solution:

1. Sd8xc6 + Sc7xe8
second Sc6xa7 + KC8-b8
3. Tc4-c8 + Kb8xa7
4. Sc3-b5 + Lf1xb5
5. Le7-c5 + b7-b6 +
6 + Ka5xb5 Ta1xa4
7. Tc8xa8 matt

Works

• Paperback for chess friends , from Alexander Mosar, Berlin 1814 (author not named in title, but supported by foreword)
• Tasks for chess players including resolutions. As a continuation of the paperback for chess friends , T. Trautwein Verlag, Berlin 1832

Individual evidence

1. ^ Ancestry.com. Germany, Protestant church records, 1564–1939 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2016. The year "about 1788" previously reported in secondary literature with reference to: David Hooper and Ken Whyld : The Oxford Companion to Chess , Oxford University Press, 2nd edition 1992, p. 89 ISBN 0-19-866164-9 , is according to Arno Nickel not substantiated. The Evangelical Church Book of the Friedrichswerder Church Berlin gives the first name "August Julius". The entry also includes the date of death as indicated and the date of burial three days later.
2. ^ Note in the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1888), Vol. 5, p. 601, in the article Chess
3. ↑ Barbara and Hans Holländer: Schadows Schachclub - a game of reason in Berlin 1803–1850 , catalog for the exhibition Schadows Schachclub, Art Library, Berlin 2003, p. 131
4. ↑ ^{a b} Hans Holländer: Schadows Schachclub - a game of reason in Berlin 1803-1850 , catalog for the exhibition Schadows Schachclub, Art Library, Berlin 2003, p. 44
5. ↑ This game was played at the same time as the Breslau game through private correspondence, but Mendheim did not pursue it with the same seriousness and commitment as the "official" game. This is proven by some of the few surviving letters from Mendheim to Angerstein. Mendheim himself did not mention the private part in his later detailed commentary on the first part in Breslau with no syllable. This did not prevent other chess authors such as Ludwig Bledow and Tassilo von Heydebrand and the Lasa from publishing this game - impressed by Angerstein's success - as an example of improved black game management (A. Nickel)
6. ↑ Tassilo von Heydebrand and the Lasa: Berlin Chess Memories , Leipzig 1859, p. 2
7. ↑ Quoted from Johannes Kohtz : "Stamma and his successors (1737-1845)", in: Handbuch des Schachspiels , Edition Olms: Zürich 1983 (reprint of the Berlin and Leipzig edition 1922–1930), pp. 77–85, here: p 82. ISBN 3-283-00103-0

literature

• Barbara and Hans Holländer: Schadows Schachclub - a game of reason in Berlin 1803-1850 , catalog for the exhibition Schadows Schachclub, Art Library, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-88609-480-4
• Egbert Meissenburg: Julius Mendheim , in: Rochade Europa , No. 8, August 1996, pp. 60-61.
• Arno Nickel : Julius Mendheim. In: KARL , 2/2017, pp. 12-13.
• Arno Nickel: Julius Mendheim. On the trail of a brilliant chess master of the early 19th century . Edition Marco, Berlin 2018. ISBN 978-3-924833-76-3 .

Web links

• Jeremy P. Spinrad: Julius Mendheim ( Memento from February 18, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 275 kB), article at chesscafe.com , October 2008 (English)
• Compositions by Julius Mendheim on the PDB server