Klaus Junge

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Klaus Junge (born January 1, 1924 in Concepción , Chile , † April 17, 1945 at Welle ) was a German chess master .

Origin and life

Klaus Junge was born as the youngest child of a German-Chilean family. The great-grandfather, who came from Dithmarschen , had already emigrated to the South American country. However, the descendants were still connected to their old homeland. The parents, Otto and Anna Junge, moved back to Germany with their five sons in 1928, probably with a view to better training and career prospects (four sons later died in World War II ). At first they lived in Blankenese , in 1929 Otto Junge acquired the Klein Wehnendorf estate near Sanitz , but had to sell it again in 1931. The family moved to Ahrensburg in 1931 and to Hamburg in 1934 .

The future chess master was a gifted student. In Sanitz he was immediately placed in the second class and later skipped another class in high school. After graduating from high school at the age of 17, Klaus Junge enrolled as a mathematics student at Hamburg University . In 1942 he was assigned to the Reich Labor Service , as is shown by photographs from that year that show him in the corresponding uniform. At the turn of 1942/43, Klaus Junge was drafted into the Wehrmacht .

Chess career

He learned to play chess from his father Otto Junge . He was a strong chess player and had even won the Chilean national championship in 1922. Furthermore, the grandfather, who had turned back to Germany at an early age, was also considered a strong member of the Hamburg chess club . As early as 1939, Klaus Junge played alongside his father on the eighth board in the Hamburg SK team, which came third in the final round of the German team championship in Stuttgart. Klaus Junge scored 4.5 points from 5 games in this tournament. In the same year he won the A-class of the Nordmark Congress in Lübeck with 9 points from 11 games. In March 1941 he became the master of Hamburg and won all nine games. In the same year he won the valuation tournament in Bad Elster in May and thus qualified for the championship of the Greater German Chess Federation in Bad Oeynhausen . There he was only defeated in the playoff against tournament winner Paul Felix Schmidt with the same points .

In 1942 Junge played in several tournaments. First he was again Hamburg champion with 8.5 points from 9 games. At the international tournament in Salzburg , to which Junge was invited to replace the failed ex-world champion Max Euwe , he managed to win a game against world champion Alexander Alekhine (see below), who saw him as his possible successor. At the European Championships from September 14 to 26, 1942 in Munich , he finished 7th. At a tournament in Warsaw , Lublin and Cracow in October, Junge came in second behind Alekhine, ahead of Efim Bogoljubow . In November / December, Junge took second place behind Walter Niephaus at a tournament in Leipzig with 5.5 points from 7 games . His greatest success was the first place he shared with Alekhine at the tournament in Prague , which took place from December 5th to 16th. After the 10th round, Junge was leading with 8.5 points (7 wins, 3 draws ), but lost in the last round to Alekhine, who was able to draw level .

As early as 1941, Junge played against Rudolf Palme in Bad Elster , the variant later named after Michail Botwinnik 1. d2 – d4 d7 – d5 2. c2 – c4 e7 – e6 3. Nb1 – c3 c7 – c6 4. Ng1 – f3 Ng8 – f6 5 Bc1-g5 d5xc4 6. e2-e4 b7-b5 7. e4-e5 h7-h6 8. Bg5-h4 g7-g5 9. Nf3xg5 h6xg5 10. Bh4xg5 Nb8-d7.

He also started two long-distance tournaments in 1942 , winning against Rudolf Teschner , among others . Several games could not be completed by the players due to the changed war situation and therefore had to be estimated.

Klaus Junge and National Socialism

Klaus Junge was a supporter of National Socialism . His father, who had been a member of the NSDAP since 1932, probably played a role . Some photographs show Klaus Junge sitting at the chessboard with a swastika armband. In these photographs he wears a uniform of the Reich Labor Service (RAD), which included such a swastika armband. As a future German world-class player, Klaus Junge experienced the protection of the Greater German Chess Federation and was able to take part in a number of well-staffed chess tournaments for a long time during the war.

Controversy about the National Socialist "combat chess"

The rather positional style of play of the young master was occasionally criticized by proponents of a decidedly aggressive "combat chess". In particular, an essay by Emil Joseph Diemer appeared in the Deutsche Schachzeitung in 1943 . This accused boy of not playing daring enough and rather preferring closed openings like Catalan . Eduard Dyckhoff turned against these accusations in an article in the Deutsche Schachblättern (March 1943).

Death and afterlife

Most recently, Klaus Junge was deployed as a lieutenant in the artillery that was supposed to defend Hamburg. He fell just a few days before the end of the war, on April 17, 1945, in a skirmish with a British tank unit near Welle in the Lüneburg Heath .

Alongside Robert Huebner , Wolfgang Uhlmann and Wolfgang Unzicker, Klaus Junge was probably the greatest German chess talent of the 20th century. His best historical rating was calculated to be 2661 for September 1942.

Several Klaus Junge memorial tournaments took place. Shortly after the end of the war, the Ukrainian champion Fedir Bohatyrtschuk , then living as a refugee in Germany , won in Regensburg in 1946 , and Aleksandar Matanović won in Hamburg in 1955 . In 1980 ten foreign players played against a selection of the Hamburger SK in Hamburg. The most successful player in this tournament was Heikki Westerinen . Finally, the third Hamburg Klaus Junge Open took place in 2005 , which Namiq Quliyev won.

Game example

Alekhine - boy
  a b c d e f G H  
8th Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg 8th
7th Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess pdt45.svg 7th
6th Chess --t45.svg Chess rdt45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess pdt45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess plt45.svg 6th
5 Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess pdt45.svg Chess nlt45.svg 5
4th Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess plt45.svg Chess --t45.svg 4th
3 Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess kdt45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess klt45.svg 3
2 Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg 2
1 Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg Chess --t45.svg 1
  a b c d e f G H  
Final position after 69 ... Rb6

Template: checkerboard-small / maintenance / new

In the following game, Junge defeated the world champion Alekhine with the black pieces at the tournament in Salzburg in 1942.

Alekhine - boy 0-1
Salzburg, June 11, 1942
Semi-Slav Defense , D31
1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 c6 4. e4 dxe4 5. Nxe4 Bb4 + 6. Nc3 c5 7. Be3 Qa5 8. Ne2 cxd4 9. Bxd4 Nf6 10. a3 Be7 11. Ng3 Nc6 12. b4 Qc7 13. Be3 0–0 14. Be2 b6 15. 0–0 Bb7 16. Nb5 Qb8 17. Qc1 a6 18. Nc3 Qc7 19. Sa4 Nd7 20.Rd1 Sce5 21. f3 a5 22. Qb2 axb4 23. axb4 Bf6 24. Qb3 b5 25.cxb5 Bd5 26.Rxd5 exd5 27.Rc1 Nc4 28.Bxc4 dxc4 29.Rxc4 De5 30.Nc5 Nb6 31.Rc1 Nd5 32.Nge4 Nxe3 33.Qxe3 Ra1 34.Rf1 Rd8 35.Nxf6 + Qxf6 36.b6 Rxf1 + 37. Kxf1 Qxb6 38. De4 Qb5 + 39. Kf2 Re8 40. Qd4 Qb6 41. Nb3 Rb8 42. Qxb6 Rxb6 43. g4 Rxb4 44. Nc5 f6 45. Kg3 Kf7 46. Nd3 Rd4 47. Nf4 Rc4 48. h4 Rc5 49 50. Nf4 Ke7 51. h5 g5 52. Ne2 Rc4 53. Kf2 Ke6 54. Ng3 Ke5 55. Nf5 Kf4 56. Ne3 Rc5 57. Ng2 + Ke5 58. Ne3 Kd4 59. Nd1 Rc1 60. Ne3 Rc5 61. Nd1 Kd3 62. Ne3 Re5 63.Nf1 Re2 + 64. Kg1 Ra2 65. h6 Ke2 66. Kg2 Rb2 67.Ng3 + Ke3 + 68. Kh3 Kxf3 69.Nh5 Rb6 - Alekhine gave up.

literature

  • Edmund Budrich and Dietmar Schulte: That was Klaus Junge. Games and records. 1st edition. De Gruyter, Berlin 1956. 2nd, unchanged edition. Beyer, Eltmann 2014, ISBN 978-3-940417-73-2 .
  • Helmut Riedl: The life and work of Klaus Junge . Fruth, Unterhaching 1995, ISBN 3-9804896-0-4 .
  • Peter Anderberg: News from Klaus Junge. In: Kaissiber . No. 28, July-September 2007, pp. 64-75.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Peter Anderberg: Leipzig 1942: Niephaus vs. Boy. Duel of the young masters . In: Schach 7/2020, pp. 52–63, here: p. 56.
  2. ↑ a b Helmut Riedl: The life and work of Klaus Junge . Fruth, Unterhaching 1995, ISBN 3-9804896-0-4 , p. 9.
  3. ↑ Harald E. Balló: History of the German Chess Federation (3rd part, B 1933-1945). ( Memento of September 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Website of Harald E. Balló, accessed on November 12, 2019.
  4. ↑ Helmut Riedl: The life and work of Klaus Junge . Fruth, Unterhaching 1995, ISBN 3-9804896-0-4 , p. 7 (based on the information provided by Wolfgang Unzicker).
  5. ↑ Chronik des Hamburger SK 1830 to 1946 , p. 356 (PDF file; 1.3 MB).
  6. ↑ German individual championship 1941 in Bad Oeynhausen on TeleSchach (cross table and games).
  7. ^ Edmund Bruns: National Socialism, Chess, Klaus Junge. In: KARL. The cultural chess magazine. Edition 01/05, pp. 28-33.
  8. ↑ Harald E. Balló: History of the German Chess Federation (3rd part, B 1933-1945). ( Memento of September 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Website of Harald E. Balló, accessed on November 12, 2019.
  9. ↑ Werner Brähler: Memories of the Reich Labor Service 1943. Website of the Living Museum Online. Deutsches Historisches Museum, February 2010, accessed on May 24, 2018.
  10. ↑ The articles on the controversy about the young chess style are printed in: Helmut Riedl: Das Leben und Schaffen von Klaus Junge . Fruth, Unterhaching 1995, pp. 181-188.
  11. ↑ Klaus Junge. Website of the Chess History & Literature Society, accessed on March 2, 2019 (photograph of the tombstone with Klaus Junge's life data by Andreas Saremba, taken 2011).
  12. ^ André Schulz : Search for traces. In: de.chessbase.com , ChessBase, December 16, 2014, accessed on May 9, 2016.
    Helmut Riedl: The life and work of Klaus Junge . Fruth, Unterhaching 1995, ISBN 3-9804896-0-4 , p. 80 f. (with April 18, 1945 as the most likely date of death).
  13. ↑ Chessmetrics Player Profile. Retrieved May 10, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Boy, Klaus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German chess player
DATE OF BIRTH January 1, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Concepción (Chile)
DATE OF DEATH April 17, 1945
Place of death at Welle (Lower Saxony)