Wally Henschel

Wally Henschel (born September 9, 1893 in Hamburg , † December 13, 1988 in Miami ) was a German-American chess player . She was the sister of Käthe Henschel , who was later also called Kate Henschel .

Wally and Käthe Henschel were born as twin daughters of Israel Henschel and his wife Fanny Henschel (née Lewek) into a Jewish family. Wally attended a high school for girls and at 16 the Bernuth Conservatory . With the continuation of her musical training after the conservatory, she was officially recognized as a teacher for singing in 1927 and in 1929 as suitable for the stage profession in the opera genre. At first she appeared mainly as a singer, where she gave performances on the German-Belgian front during the First World War, for example with the Hamburg City Theater.

From 1933 to 1939 she was employed in the Hamburger Tempel on Oberstrasse, but gave full-time singing and piano practice lessons.

Wally Henschel was next to Sonja Graf in a duel in 1937 , the only woman against Vera Menchik a game in a title fight for the Women's World Chess Championship won. Henschel achieved this success in Hamburg in 1930 , where she also took third place among five players. In the title fight in Prague in 1931 she reached the last place with the same number of participants. This was her last participation in a world chess championship.

As children of a Jewish family, the two Henschel sisters Wally and Käthe were removed from Hamburg SK in 1933 after the so-called seizure of power by the NSDAP at the beginning of National Socialism . In order to avoid the clear anti-Semitism and the possible physical annihilation that goes with it , for example in further pogroms , both decided to emigrate to the United States before the Reichspogromnacht on November 9, 1938 . So they left the German Reich on March 25, 1939, six days before their passports were blocked. In the following months the sisters came to New York via the Netherlands, England, West Indies, Central America and Haiti.

Since Wally Henschel could no longer earn enough money with practice lessons after emigrating, she received financial support from her father until 1944. Then she opened a small pension where she lived in poor conditions. Also in 1944 she and her sister Käthe took part in the US Women's Championship , where Käthe finished third behind Gisela Gresser and Mona May Karff and Wally fourth. By the mid-1950s, Wally Henschel had lost almost all of her eyesight.

Little information is known from the time that followed, up to her death in 1988, which suggests that her circle of friends consisted to a significant extent of emigrants and that she was dissatisfied with the amount of the payments made by the Office of Reparation . In 1986 the Henschel sisters moved to live with a nephew in Miami, where Wally Henschel died on December 13, 1988. Two and a half years later, Käthe also died.

Game example

Henschel-Menchik

	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

End position after 41st Th5

The following game is Vera Menchik's only losing game in a world championship tournament.

Henschel – Menchik 1-0

Hamburg, 1930

King's Indian Defense , E94

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. Nf3 0–0 5. e4 d6 6. Be2 Nbd7 7. 0–0 e5 8. Bg5 h6 9. dxe5 dxe5 10. Bh4 c6 11. Qd2 Re8 12. Rfd1 Qb6 13. Bf1 Nh5 14.b3 Nf4 15. Sa4 Qc7 16.Rac1 Ne6 17.Nc3 Nd4 18.Ne1 Nf8 19.f3 Be6 20.Nc2 Kh7 21.Nxd4 exd4 22nd Ne2 c5 23.Nf4 Be5 24. Bg3 Qd6 25. Bd3 b6 26. Ne2 Bxg3 27.Nxg3 a5 28. a4 Bc8 29. Rf1 Ra7 30. Rce1 Tae7 31. f4 Bb7 32. e5 Qb8 33.Nh5 Nd7 34. f5 Rf8 35. fxg6 + fxg6 36. e6 Ne5 37. Rxf8 Qxf8 38.Rxe5 Bc8 39.Nf4 Qf6 40.Nxg6 Rg7 41.Rh5 and Black gave up.

Individual references and sources

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Bettina Frankenbach: Wally Henschel. In: "Lexicon of persecuted musicians from the Nazi era", edited by Claudia Maurer Zenck and Peter Petersen with the collaboration of Sophie Fetthauer, University of Hamburg, since 2005, http://www.lexm.uni-hamburg.de/object/ lexm_lexmperson_00003095 (December 15, 2009). accessed on February 12, 2015.
2. ^ Sarah's Chess Journal: Women in Chess - The (American) War Years 1942–1945 . September 2007, accessed February 12, 2015.
3. ^ Taken from the column by P. Feenstra Kuiper in Leidsch Dagblat , December 20, 1930, p. 18.