Book Review: Chess in the Third Reich: How the Game was Played, Glorified, and Abused in Nazi Germany, 1933-45 by Taylor Kingston
A fascinating historical deep dive into the darkest period of German Chess. What can we learn? And how could it apply today?
Thanks to McFarland & Company for the review copy.
Chess in the Third Reich: How the Game was Played, Glorified, and Abused in Nazi Germany, 1933-45 puts up a microscope to Chess as it became under the rule of the Third Reich. It goes chapter by chapter, year by year as Kingston weaves a narrative explaining how the world’s most infamous totalitarian regime took control of everything that existed on the 64 squares, and how this takeover of the game reflected the Reich’s political and military movements in Europe.
Of course, Nazi Germany wasn’t the first regime of its kind in this regard. The USSR built one of the most successful chess programs the world had ever seen and used it as an ideological weapon against anti-communism as it sought to show that its culture was superior. It’s telling that from Botvinnik to Kasparov, the USSR claimed every World Championship for itself, excepting when it was embarrassed by the rolling American thunderstorm of Bobby Fischer in 1972 until Karpov won the Candidates Match that became the de facto World Championship when Fischer refused to defend his title.
But the Third Reich’s program wasn’t quite so sterling. Kingston brings the receipts, as the kids would say. This book is loaded with tournament results from the end of the Weimar Republic to the end of the “Thousand-year Reich”, with lots of references to old 1930s and 40s era German chess magazines — even some analysis (Kingston uses Stockfish 14 throughout to check some lines mentioned by these and other sources and to provide some of his own).
There’s a dark irony to history especially when it comes to Naziism, and its anti-Semitic aspect is no exception. See the first two official world chess champions, for instance: Austrian Wilhelm Steinitz and German Emanuel Lasker. In order to prove Aryan superiority, Nazi Germany’s chess propagandists would eventually attempt to whitewash any and all hints of Jewishness from the storied history of the game in their newly published and republished books and magazines. Nazi chauvinism was built on a foundation of lies. This would, of course, not really pan out in their favor as the international results ended up showing.
For any student of WWII, this may appear obvious. For the chess student, maybe it isn’t. Oftentimes the political history of chess is dismissed or otherwise handwaved. After all, it doesn’t matter where or when a game was played, nor who played it, if all you’re simply interested in beautiful games or how to become a better player. Yet, if you fancy a bit of history with your chess, especially World War II history, then I consider this book a must-read. There are so many scanned images, translated articles, and chess trivia — including information about the short-lived Nazi-approved Wehrschach chess variant(?!), stories of Euwe deliberately blundering in order not to offend SS higher-ups(!?), the disputes between Emil Josef Diemer (yes, the Diemer in the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit) and Ernhardt Post about proper chess — and the cautionary tales of how racism and nationalism can lead to the persecution and dehumanization of an entire ethno-religious group — even in the petty context of chess.
Many other famous names are found in here — in fact it was shocking to see how much the war shaped the lives and careers of so many players whose names we may be familiar with. Mendel Najdorf (who would invent that singularly most famous Sicilian variation by the same name) left Poland for Argentina to compete in an ill-fated Olympiad, in the middle of which Germany had declared war on his home country, which, as Kingston says, “had ceased to exist.” Najdorf would never see his family again after World War 2, as they became victims of the Holocaust. And so Mendel became Miguel Najdorf most people remember him as today.
Paul Keres, the “Crown Prince” of chess was beginning his career around this period and racking up some great wins. As an Estonian he had the double-displeasure of playing first under the Soviet occupation of Poland and then under the German occupation. He shows up a few times here. Bogoljubow, another chess giant, shows up all over the place, since he emigrated to Germany in the 20s, and was apparently happy to continue playing chess under the Reich.
Eliskases may be a name familiar with some. As may Kurt Richter (as in, the Richter-Rauzer variation of the Classical Sicilian and Richter-Veresov Attack opening). All-in-all Nazi Germany, especially through the countries which it annexed and occupied, accumulated quite some chess talent that would end up playing under their regime.
Probably most infamous of this acquired talent was Alexander Alekhine (through the defeat of France), who receives an extensive historical treatment which discusses his working relationship with none other than Hans Frank, the head of the Nazi Generalgouvernement in Poland during its occupation (who appeared to have a real penchant for Chess as well). Alekhine is well-known for having written a number of antisemitic articles for German Chess magazines while France was under German occupation. Kingston’s narrative for Alekhine makes sense, neither absolving Alekhine nor concluding that he must have been a true Nazi sympathizer (though he was known to be antisemitic). Rather, Alekhine was an opportunist trying to find a way to survive (whether in Europe or by moving to America) and (probably) avoiding deportation to Russia where he was a wanted anti-Bolshevist. This lends some much-appreciated context to his collaboration with Hans Frank. Alekhine was given a government job, and also visited injured veterans, raising funds and playing simul events alongside Bogoljubow. Alekhine would even publish attacks against Euwe in his racially-charged retellings of the narrative of his 1937 comeback to regain the world title. This also gives some background as to why Euwe would never play chess against Alekhine again and would deliberately avoid him, even when he himself would play Chess even in occupied territory (not to mention that most anybody would not compete with him after the war ended, for obvious and deserved reasons). It’s probably the most interesting historical part of the book.
One thing I found interesting was how even though in some senses the seemingly whole world as it was had stopped during the war, Chess continued to live and breathe, if labored, in Europe, and under the iron boot of Nazi Germany for the most part until 1944. It makes sense from a chess-perspective that war should be seen as the interruption to chess, rather than the other way around, in a chess-centric history book about the war to end all wars; perhaps that is what it felt like for some of these players as well.
I should mention, Kingston hasn’t written a manual on chess improvement, so don’t go fishing for bullet points on how to play better chess. There are some 136 games (fragments and full scores), but not all are equally didactically resplendent — for every Alekhine brilliancy there is the showing of a pair of patzers who somehow got into a regional championship by sheer unlikelihood — Kingston is not shy about showing all the warts of these oft-one-sided tournaments. Mistakes are made all the time. Just remember this is not a best-games collection. This is a history book about chess with lots of evidence to back it up. That said, there are truly some brilliant games in here, if you dig in to find them:
Chess in the Third Reich book definitely fits into the category of chess history and culture. There is the tale of the self-defeating attempts to unperson the famous Jews who built German Chess culture. There’s the interesting story of chessical unrest in Argentina during the 8th Chess Oympiad both at the Olympiad and with FIDE’s governmental structure where a sort of coup was attempted to bring all of its operations away from Europe which was becoming engulfed in a huge war. And then of course all the events during the reign of the Reich and the intrigue surrounding Alekhine’s politicking in an effort to get out of dodge.
Yet, as we’re coming on year 3 of the most recent flare-up of the Russo-Ukrainian war that began in January 2022, it’s hard not to see other living analogies right before our eyes.
Russia continues to hold chess tournaments in occupied territory. Sergey Karjakin, for instance, is featured in Russian media, touring devastated Ukrainian cities like Avdiivka, and setting up chess schools in Crimea, which Russia annexed and has occupied since 2014. The foreword, written by former German FIDE VP Herbert Bastian, takes notice of this as well. What is happening in Europe right now isn’t quite to the level of what was seen in WW2, yet. But it’s scary to think that it could.
The world of chess is quite small in the grand scheme of things. And so, these events can appear petty. But if anything, chess activity also reflects the life of a country. When a nation dies, so does its chess. Nazi Germany, on the eve of its fateful defeat, would eventually cease all national championships, as chess was relegated as much as possible in order to further support the cause of total war. Nazi chess deserved to die with its country, but Ukraine doesn’t, and I pray that we will see more beautiful chess (yes! chess! because where there is chess, there is life), for years to come.
This is a timely book that does not just deserve to be collected for the historical information and games it contains — it deserves to be read, with one eye on World War 2 and one eye on current events in 2025. So if you’re interested in the intersection of chess and the history of Nazi Germany, I can’t think of a better book unto that end and happily recommend it. Kingston has created a worthy and unique addition to world of chess literature.
You can purchase Chess in the Third Reich from McFarland & Company’s website here.