Walter Niephaus

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Walter Niephaus (born March 30, 1923 in Moers ; † November 2, 1992 in Andernach ) was one of the strongest German chess players in the 1940s and 1950s .

Life

At the age of 15 he came to Frankfurt am Main , where he completed a banking apprenticeship and learned to play chess from an uncle. In 1942 he defeated the touring world chess champion Alexander Alekhine in two simultaneous games , who said in a letter to the management of the Greater German Chess Federation about Niephaus: After Klaus Junge (Hamburg), I have not yet met a young player with similar talent in Germany.

At the German Championship in Bad Oeynhausen in 1942, he was eleventh. A little later, Niephaus was drafted into the Wehrmacht and became German army champion in chess.

After the war he took part in the German championships eight times, with his best results being two fourth places. In 1955 at the West German championship in Frankfurt-Höchst he did not lose a game, won against Lothar Schmid and finished fourth. He was also twice in the final of the Dähne Cup , but lost in 1950 to Lothar Schmid and in 1954 after a playoff against Karl Gilg . In a German ranking list drawn up in 1955, Niephaus was fourth. He was also active in correspondence chess and in 1947 came second in the German championship.

In 1951 he won a competition in Wiesbaden against the Belgian master and later grandmaster Alberic O'Kelly de Galway with 3.5: 2.5. Niephaus played 47 games for the German national team, including at the 1956 Chess Olympiad in Moscow , where he scored 6.5 out of 10, and at the European team championship in 1961 in Oberhausen .

With his club Düsseldorfer SG , he was German team champion in 1960 .

Until his retirement he worked as a claims adjuster at an insurance company in Düsseldorf. After a professional break, he last played at SV Andernach in the Rhineland-Palatinate League.

His best historical rating was 2563 in January 1952, making him number 87 in the world.

literature

  • Helmut Wieteck: Walter Niephaus, a master from the Rhine . Edition Jung, Homburg 2003. ISBN 3-933648-22-X .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Deutsche Schachzeitung , May 1942, p. 66.
  2. ↑ 34th German individual chess championship 1942 in Bad Oeynhausen on TeleSchach
  3. ↑ 43rd German individual championship 1955 in Frankfurt am Main / Höchst on TeleSchess
  4. ↑ Walter Niephaus' results at the Chess Olympiads on olimpbase.org (English)
  5. ↑ Walter Niephaus' results at European Team Championships on olimpbase.org (English)
  6. ↑ Walter Niephaus' historic Elo ratings at chessmetrics.com (English)
personal data
SURNAME Niephaus, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German chess player
DATE OF BIRTH March 30, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Moers
DATE OF DEATH 2nd November 1992
Place of death Then after