Rudolf Spielmann

Rudolf Spielmann
Association	Austria
Born	May 5, 1883 Vienna
Died	August 20, 1942 Stockholm
Best Elo rating	2716 (January 1913) ( historical rating )

Rudolf Spielmann (born May 5, 1883 in Vienna , † August 20, 1942 in Stockholm ) was an Austrian chess player .

career

Around 1903

Spielmann learned to play chess from his father at the age of four to five.

Rudolf Spielmann took part in around 120 tournaments, of which he won 33. His success includes a third place at the 16th DSB Congress in Düsseldorf , a 3rd / 4th place. Place in Saint Petersburg 1909, Stockholm 1909, 4th place in Hamburg 1910, 2nd place in Bad Pistyan 1912, 1st place in Baden 1914, 2nd / 3rd place Place in Mannheim 1914, 1st place in Stockholm 1919, 2nd / 3rd place Place in Bad Pistyan 1922, 1st / 2nd place Place in Teplitz-Schönau in 1922, Vienna in 1926 and Karlsbad in 1929.

In 1927 Spielmann won the German individual chess championship in Magdeburg ahead of Efim Bogoljubow . His greatest success was the tournament victory at the Semmering in 1926. Spielmann won ahead of Alexander Alekhine , Milan Vidmar , Aaron Nimzowitsch and Savielly Tartakower . Because of his risk-taking game, he sometimes ended up at the bottom of the tournament table , despite trying to play more positionally solid after World War I. In the 1930s Spielmann's tournament performance slowly declined. Spielmann took part with Austria in the Chess Olympiads in 1931 and 1935 (each on the second board behind Ernst Grünfeld ).

He was the only player to have a non-negative record against José Raúl Capablanca in more than one win - two wins and two losses in eight draws (Alekhine also had a negative record against Capablanca). Spielmann scored his victories in Bad Kissingen in 1928 and Karlsbad in 1929, shortly after Capablanca lost the world championship.

In addition to other world-class players, Spielmann took part in 1925 as an extra in the Russian silent film humorist Chessfieber .

Play style

Spielmann was known for his tactical skills and his brilliant attack and combination game , he was also called "the last knight of the King's Gambit" after his 1st place in the King's Gambit - themed tournament in Abbazia 1912. He had a penchant for sacrifice and is comparable to the later world champion Michail Tal . In 1935 his best-known book, Richtig sacrifice! . In it he tried to classify the various types of sacrifice in chess. This book has been translated many times, including a. into English ( The art of sacrifice ), French, Spanish and Swedish.

Life

Rudolf Spielmann was the second of six children of Moriz Spielmann and Cäcilie Nestädtl, a Jew who immigrated from Nikolsburg to Vienna in the 1870s . Rudolf Spielmann's parents were committed to the development of their children's artistic talents. Spielmann's older brother Leopold was musically gifted, while his three sisters Melanie, Irma and Jenny appeared as actresses. The youngest brother Edgar died early of suicide in 1917 because he could not get over the death of his mother, as did Melanie in 1927 at the age of 42 after a serious illness.

Spielmann successfully finished school, but refused to study mathematics because he wanted to become a professional chess player, where he first attracted attention in St. Petersburg in 1909 (see above). Spielmann's career was interrupted by the First World War, in which he had to serve as a soldier in the Austro-Hungarian Army . On February 1, 1935, he gave up his residence in Vienna and stayed temporarily in the Netherlands, where his two sisters lived.

After the “ Anschluss” of Austria in 1938, Spielmann was unable to return to his home country as a Jew; his passport had become invalid as a result of the "Anschluss". He fled to Prague, where his brother Leopold's family had fled from Germany, and found accommodation “in a shabby [...] pension”. After an appeal to Ludvig Collijn, the President of the Swedish Chess Federation, on December 10, 1938, Spielmann was able to flee to Sweden in January 1939 before the Wehrmacht invaded Czechoslovakia .

However, some relatives of minstrel were victims of the Shoah . Brother Leopold was arrested by the SS and held in the Flossenbürg and Theresienstadt concentration camps for two years, where he died in 1941. In contrast, Leopold's underage daughters Lilly and Ilse managed to flee to England in 1939. The sisters Irma and Jenny were also arrested. Irma was murdered in the concentration camp, while Jenny survived the camp but could not cope with the post-liberation depression and committed suicide in 1964.

Collijn died shortly after Spielmann's arrival in Sweden and Spielmann tried to raise money for a trip to England or America by publishing his autobiography, which has disappeared to this day. Spielmann's estate, which may have been sold to the United States, is believed to have been lost and the person who commissioned the autobiography is unknown.

There are two different versions of how Spielmann died. According to a version told by Spielmann's closest relatives, Spielmann is said to have locked himself in his room, from which he could not get out and in which he was finally found starving. Another version tells of Parkinson's disease that Spielmann fell victim to. Officially, he died of hypertension and cardiosclerosis .

On July 10, 2011 in Vienna- Leopoldstadt (2nd district) Rudolf-Spielmann-Platz was named after him.

Works

• Rudolf Spielmann: A sightseeing flight through the world of chess . Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1929 (= Veits small chess library, vol. 13).
• Rudolf Spielmann: Right to sacrifice! Requirements, aim and implementation of the sacrifice in the game of chess . Joachim Beyer Verlag, Eltmann 2013, ISBN 978-3-940417-41-1 .

literature

• Michael Ehn (Ed.): Rudolf Spielmann. Portrait of the chess master in texts and games , Koblenz 1996, ISBN 3-929291-04-5 .
• Michael Ehn: Rudolf Spielmann - an Austrian tragedy , in: Schach-Report 5, 1996, pp. 70–74, other versions:
  • Rudolf Spielmann Platz opened in Vienna , commemorative speech by Michael Ehn, Austrian Chess Federation , July 12, 2011 (with illustrations)
• Michael Ehn: Rudolf Spielmann, 4 + 1 approach attempts , in: Karl 1, 2007, pages 24–27, excerpt .
• Elisabeth Lebensaft , Christoph Mentschl:  Spielmann Rudolf. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 13, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2007–2010, ISBN 978-3-7001-6963-5 , p. 25 f. (Direct links on p. 25 , p. 26 ).
• Elisabeth Lebensaft, Christoph Mentschl:  Spielmann, Rudolf. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 24, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-428-11205-0 , p. 689 f. ( Digitized version ).

Individual references and sources

1. ^ The international tournament Düsseldorf 1908 (16th DSB Congress) on TeleSchach (cross table and all games)
2. ↑ German individual chess championship 1927 in Magdeburg on TeleSchach (cross table and games)
3. ↑ Rudolf Spielmann's results at the Chess Olympiads on olimpbase.org (English)
4. ^ Ing W. Ball: Master Spielmann farewell . In: Wiener Schachzeitung No. 3, February 1935. p. 33.
5. ↑ Michael Ehn: The Spielmann family - an Austrian tragedy
6. ^ Michael Ehn: Rudolf Spielmann. Portrait of the chess master in texts and games. Koblenz 1996. p. 84.
7. ↑ chessbase.de: Rudolf Spielmann: Life story as contemporary history

Web links

Commons : Rudolf Spielmann  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Rudolf Spielmann in the catalog of the German National Library
• Rudolf Spielmann - a portrait of Johannes Fischer at chessbase.de
• Replayable chess games by Rudolf Spielmann on chessgames.com (English)