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Siegbert
Tarrasch: Chessplayer, Doctor, German, Jew by Harald E. Balló, Offenbach/Main, Germany.
Translated
from the German by John van Manen , Australia with the help of Ken Whyld,
England and Hanon Russell, USA.
In the life of the chess
grandmaster and physician, Siegbert Tarrasch, the whole tragedy of the attempt
of Jewish assimilation in Germany becomes clear, even if Tarrasch did not have
to die in the gas chambers of Ausschwitz or Treblinka. On the basis of ongoing
sociological research and work, the following thesis will be set forth and
pleaded - that Tarrasch’s dogmatic and often hurtful way of expressing his
convictions in an exaggerated pedantic method can only be understood when the
special place of the Jews in the Empire and in the Weimar Republic are borne in
mind. Unlike Emanuel Lasker or Savielly Tartakower, who - as we can definitely
assume - must have realized sometime after the end of the First World War (which,
just like Tarrasch, they endured on the side of the axis countries Germany and
Austria) that an assimilation of the Jewry in Germany was impossible and who,
therefore, after 1918, represented the cosmopolitan Jews from the German culture,
Tarrasch reacted as chessplayer with the possibilities given to him by the
anti-semitism of the Empire and by the Weimar Republic by an intensified
assimilation. Still, in 1933, he completely misunderstood the anti-Jewish
legislation that followed the taking of power by the National Socialists. His
attitude up to his death was mainly characterized by trying to be a good German
citizen and to serve his fatherland. Tarrasch’s dogmatism can quite easily be
explained by his struggle for recognition as a Jew among Germans. There is much
to say for the notion that Siegbert Tarrasch had an excessive need for public
recognition in order to compensate for the feeling of social inferiority of the
Jew. Up to now this explanation has not been sufficiently appreciated in
historical chess literature. Its application, however, provides a completely new
understanding of more recent chess history, with which the name of Tarrasch is
closely connected.
Siegbert Tarrasch was born
March 5, 1862 in Breslau (Polish Wroclaw) the capital of Silesia. Therefore,
when only nine years-old in 1871, Tarrasch lived through the establishment of
the German Empire, which was experienced by contemporaries as an epoch-making
event. Breslau was the home of the largest Jewish community after Berlin and
Hamburg. (Jaeckel, Eberhard et al.
(Hrsg.), Enzyklopaedie des Holocaust, Band I, Argon Verlag, Berlin 1993, S.
240).
In particular, the established
Jews of Breslau had lived in that town for two or three generations more as
Prussians than Jews from other places. First of all because there prevailed in
Silesia a Prussian tolerance, under which Jews, Poles, Sorbs, Roman Catholics
and Protestants were relatively free within its borders as these were at that
time. As a result, the Jews felt a strong bond with this state, which gave them,
if not equal rights (in Prussia there was a three-class franchise that however
was not specifically directed against Jews), at least freedom within their own
sphere. Abraham Geiger, a liberal Jewish theologian and for a time rabbi in
Breslau, described almost a hundred years earlier the attitude of the German
Jews, which was connected with an almost insoluble conflict: "I love
Germany, although its public organizations reject me, the Jew; does love require
a reason? I feel myself, enveloped in its science, its total practice, and who
would with impunity cut the nerve of his existence?"
Secondly, the established Jews
tried to set themselves apart from the numerous immigrant eastern Jews in
Breslau, the cultural center of the East, who were predominantly of proletarian
origin. They were careful to stay to themselves in order not to upset the
predominantly German character of the Jewish community of Breslau.
In Silesia, which was conquered
from the Habsburgs by Frederick II of Prussia in 1741, people were proud of
their German citizenship and saw themselves as spearheads against the Slavs of
the East. In the center of the market place stood the monument of the honored
king of Prussia. Frederick William III had taken up his quarters in Breslau
during the war of liberation, had founded there the Iron Cross as a war memorial
and prepared there the "Call to my People." That, before anything else,
was taught as the history of Breslau to the school children. At excursions, the
teachers took them to the battle fields of the Silesian wars; they visited the
fortress Silberburg, built by Frederick II, admired the inns in which he had
spent his nights and the tree where Frederick’s horse had stood ... . (nach
Adolf-Henning Frucht und Joachim Zepelin: "Die Tragik der verschmaehten
Liebe. Die Geschichte des deutsch-juedischen Physikochemikers und preussischen
Patrioten Fritz Haber", in: Mannheimer Forum 94/95, Piper Muenchen 1995).
Tarrasch also belonged to that
upper class of the Jews of Breslau, who after the founding of the German Empire
were particularly careful to be good citizens. He attended the elite school of
Breslau, the Elisabeth-Gymnasium, from which Anderssen also received his
education, and passed his final examinations there at Easter, 1880. It becomes
clear that Tarrasch, growing up in such an environment, certainly belonged to
the Jews in the German Empire of that time, who believed that an assimilation of
the Jews in Germany was possible and necessary. In any case, in later years
Tarrasch took the trouble to prove time and again his membership in that group,
and that he was a good German. Therefore E. von Parish called him in the "Muenchener
Neuesten Nachrichten" (Munich Latest News), in view of his achievements at
chess, the "Praeceptor Germaniae" (Teacher of Germany). He gave his
eldest son the first name Fritz, after the honored king of Prussia. This can
definitely be interpreted as another visible expression of Tarrasch’s
integration efforts. The latent anti-semitism in the German Empire and the
Weimar Republic (not a specifically German phenomenon; see the Dreyfuss affair
in France in 1894) led to additional pressure to assimilate. An example of
Tarrasch’s endeavor to be recognized as a German and of his attitude that
gives the impression of being sensitive, occasionally paranoid, in face of the
German public, which he again and again assumed to be discriminating against him
because of his Jewish origin, is given by the following words spoken on the
occasion of his good result at Hamburg 1885 (Tarrasch finished only half-point
behind the winner, Gunsberg, sharing second place against very strong opposition):
"Without reserve the foreign press acknowledged my result, in particular
Zukertort in "Chess Monthly," and Steinitz in the "International
Chess Magazine"... Only the German chess press, in particular Minckwitz in
the "Schachzeitung," wrapped themselves in significant silence."
(Tarrasch: "Dreihundert Schachpartieen"
Veit und Comp., Leipzig 1895, S. 64).
Strikingly, Minckwitz was also
editor of the Hamburg 1885 tournament book, published in 1886. Again and again,
it becomes clear in the books and articles written by Tarrasch, that he wished
nothing more fervently than to be recognized by his fellow citizens as a German.
He saw himself completely as the successor to Adolf Anderssen, and it was
certainly not an empty phrase, when he wrote: "... on the contrary, I
regarded it as obvious that I had to stake my glory gained in Breslau [at the
tournament of the 6th Congress of the German Chess League in Breslau 1889
Tarrasch was the winner; H.E.B.] at the next opportunity, just like Anderssen,
the chessplayer’s ideal, always did". ("Dreihundert
Schachpartieen," Veit und Comp., Leipzig 1895, S. 291).
And when Tarrasch won the
tournament in Manchester in 1890, he stressed how pleased he was to have
fulfilled the heart’s desire of many German chessplayers. (Ders.,
a.a.O., S. 295).
The psychological position in
which Tarrasch and many of his contemporary Jews found themselves, was also that
of a human being, who had to always prove that he, the Jew, belonged among them.
For that reason he could not get enough recognition. And even when the
long-famous "Augustea" of Leipzig, the time-honored chess club of
Saxony, sent him a cable after his success in Manchester 1890: "The
Augustea congratulates the foremost German master," he perceived it as
discriminating, that in Germany he was only seen as the foremost master in
Germany, and not - as in foreign magazines - already as World Champion. (Ders.,
a.a.O., S. 295).
He wanted not to be the leading
German, but he wanted to be World Champion for Germany!
From his first marriage
Tarrasch had five children, three sons and two daughters. Within a short period,
1914-1916, his three sons died. The eldest son, Dr. phil. Fritz Tarrasch, was
killed on May 14, 1915, as lieutenant in the 15th Bavarian reserve infantry
regiment in the First World War. Tarrasch’s second son committed suicide,
while the third son died when run over by a tram in Munich in 1916. What a
strong personality Tarrasch must have had and how far his need must have been
for admission and recognition by the German public, becomes clear from the
defiant encouraging lines, which he wrote in the autumn 1916 in spite of these
heavy personal losses: "And secondly we note that notwithstanding all the
terror of the World War, this distracts us so little, that our appreciation of
mental pleasures is completely normal, and that, just as for other art, we still
maintain a keen interest in the art of chess. The saying ‘inter arma silent
musae’ (in war Muses are silent) has no validity with us. We are even doing
well!" (Der
Schachwettkampf Tarrasch-Mieses im Herbst 1916. Veit und Comp., Leipzig 1916, S.
7).
Nevertheless, these great
misfortunes and personal losses within a few years certainly could have been the
main reason that he lost his match with Emanuel Lasker in November/December of
the same year by the clear score of 5.5-0.5.
After the divorce from his
first wife Rosa Anna Tarrasch in 1924, Tarrasch married a second time and lived
in Munich. In 1932 he published his own chess magazine. In the December, 1932
issue he wrote: "Can chess not finally become the national game of Germany?
And what further prospects would present themselves then? What advance of the
general cultural level, even moral, if the chess board replaced the card table!
A real goal, worthy of the sweat of noble people!" Again a clear
declaration.
Early in 1933 the Nazis managed
to install Adolf Hitler as the Reichs Chancellor in the government, although at
the last free election he had not been elected by the majority of the German
population. To introduce their anti-semitic demands, it had set forth in the
party program of February, 1920, the first legislative measures. The "Law
to reintroduce the Professional Civil Service" of April 7, 1933, decreed
that all non-Aryan civil servants had to be dismissed. Those, who already were
officials as of August 1, 1914, who had fought at the front in the First World
War for Germany or its allies or who were officials, whose father or sons were
killed in that war, were excepted. A non-Aryan was everyone who descended from
Jewish parents. In the chess world, the introduction of anti-semitic regulations
followed the founding of the Greater German Chess League. "The Greater
German Chess League has been established December 13, 1931. Its seat is
Berlin...it...takes...as members only Germans of Aryan descent."
(Ranneforths Schachkalender 1933, Hedewigs
Nachf., Leipzig 1933, S. 113).
The German Chess League was
finally - after its longstanding leadership resigned on July 9, 1933 on the
occasion of a combined top meeting in Bad Pyrmont - more or less by force,
amalgamated with the Greater German one. What did Tarrasch feel, when in the
August, 1933 issue of his own chess magazine with reference to the Greater
German Chess League and its new regulations, he had to write: "The Aryan
paragraph has to be kept" (Tarraschs
Schachzeitung, 1933, S. 334)?
Tarrasch still had been silent
about his Jewish descent (which, however, everybody knew about).
At the start of 1933 the
position and place of Jews in Germany was by no means clear and unequivocal, in
spite of these first clearly anti-semitic measures of the National Socialists.
And nobody in the population, whether on one (German) or the other (Jewish) side
could have realized the deadly consistency with which the Nazis would proceed.
And certainly not a Jew, who like Tarrasch, was concerned about assimilation and
Germanization. It seems almost tragi-comic, how from the "German" side
Hermann Ranneforth, the longstanding publisher of the
"Schach-Kalender" and completely nationalistically oriented, in view
of the evident ambiguity and the mutually logically contradicting ways of
thinking of the National Socialists (here evident service of Jewish fellow
citizens to the German life, but there anti-Semitic laws incorporating their
racial segregation) delivered an intellectual tight-rope act without equal. Thus,
on one hand he wrote in May 1933: "In comparison, Jewish members were
always strongly represented in the chess clubs, and great international masters
also emerged, who made the fame of German chess art known in the world,"
but to write on the other hand in the next sentence: "That will probably
stop now." On one hand he wrote: "Meanwhile Jewish fellow members
voluntary left all leading positions," as if these resigned from their
offices voluntarily and without coercion, then to continue in the same breath,
that Jewish office holders "could be certain no objections could be made
against their persons, their way of thinking, and their management."
(Deutsche Schachzeitung Mai 1933, S. 134
ff.).
Finally, in his contribution to
the "Deutsche Schachzeitung" in May, 1933, quoted here, Ranneforth
appears to be certain that life would go on for Jewish citizens in Germany, but
with it he here also expressed an opinion irrational for chess players: "Whoever
feels and acts like a German and therefore feels internally connected with the
German people, why should we not accept him as a fellow compatriot?"
Tarrasch certainly also still
believed in such a possibility of living together. Nothing indicates that he
wanted to leave Germany. Undoubtedly he would have had the possibility to do so
in view of his connections. For the time being he had of course nothing to fear,
as he fell into the group of Jews whose nearest relations had fought at the
front in the First World War. Perhaps he had a presentiment of evil, but
nevertheless he, a German patriot of Jewish descent from Breslau, could not
believe that Hitler, Himmler and Heydrich had already planned a long time ago
the murder of the European Jews. In a note to a contribution by the veterinary
surgeon, Dr. Kiok of Magdeburg, who for a time ran the business of the German
Chess League, stating that "Chess, due to its high mental and cultural
significance, could be made the national game of the united German people,"
Tarrasch refers in April 1933, almost imploring appealingly, to his own article
in December, 1932, in which he had already advocated exactly the same idea
("Could Chess not finally become the national game of the German
people?"). (Tarraschs
Schachzeitung 1933, S. 223).
Therefore, as if he wanted to
call himself and the others "Aryan" Germans, once more: "Look, I
belong among You, don’t I? We want all the same, don’t we?". Another
two years would still pass, until Sunday the 15th of September 1935, before laws
were passed at Nuremberg under which the German Jews lost their political rights.
The previous exceptions, applying to veterans of the First World War, and to
civil servants, who had taken their jobs before 1914, were also cancelled.
Tarrasch fortunately did not live to see this happen. He died February 17, 1934.
Ranneforth published an
obituary in the "Deutsche Schachzeitung," in which yet again the
strangely split attitude of that time with regard to Jews found expression, and
in which Ranneforth broke the law of "Nihil nisi bene" (nothing but
good ...), as everybody certainly would agree. Here the appreciation of the
great chess player Tarrasch, there the almost obligatory need to discover in the
deceased characteristic weaknesses from the point of view of the Nazi-ideology.
"In the early hours of 17 February, shortly before the end of his 72nd year
of life, Dr. Siegbert Tarrasch died...Friends...and some representatives of
chess clubs in Munich attended the funeral service; the clergy was absent...This
was the man, who, after Anderssen’s death, enhanced again and increased
Germany’s chess reputation in the entire world to an undreamed-of high level
and who by his literary work became the teacher of all, who played a role in
international tournaments, even if they in due course went their own
way...Intolerant and quite often unjust to critics, who did not permit him to
silence them, but was himself a touchy person."
(Deutsche Schachzeitung März 1934, S. 66
ff.).
Ranneforth, although
appreciating quite well Tarrasch’s efforts on behalf of chess in Germany,
still did not understand that Tarrasch during his life wanted to be German like
the Germans.
Tarrasch’s road to
assimilation and his strategy to withdraw from reverses and repeated
disappointments by especially and conspicuously "being German" (as if
anti-semitism was something rational, which could be refuted by clear
explanation) led - in a socio-political retrospective view - not to a solution.
However, it almost certainly led to Tarrasch becoming - in the current view -
the "Praeceptor Mundi" (teacher of the world) of chess, more so than
Nimzowitsch, Reti, Lasker or Steinitz ever could be. In the form of dogmatic
rules, which he formulated for the whole world, he sublimated his need to be a
German among the Germans (not a Jew among the Germans).
Fritz Haber, the founder of the
Haber-Bosch procedure for ammonia synthesis, developer and organizer of the
chemical war in the First World War, and inventor of the method to combat pests
by using Prussic acid gas, was also a Jew from Breslau, belonging to the same
generation as Tarrasch, and passed his final exams at the same gymnasium as he.
About Fritz Haber, Albert Einstein wrote something that could be equally
applicable to Tarrasch: "It was the tragedy of the German Jews, the tragedy
of scorned love."
Siegbert Tarrasch was a German
Jew, just as Wilhelm Steinitz was a Jew who grew up in the German culture sphere,
to whom the chess world is much indebted! The persecution and murder of the
European Jews, guided by the National Socialists and racists in Germany and
elsewhere, can not dispute the fact of German-Jewish culture of that time. That
was then certainly the second war aim of the Second World War that Adolf Hitler
still could achieve. The complex connections of German Jewish history, not just
in Silesia, deserve to be saved from oblivion for the sake of chess. From today’s
viewpoint, chess history shows clearly that the development of „modern chess",
starting in 1851 with Adolf Anderssen, can not adequately be described without
mentioning the achievements of the German Jews Wilhelm Steinitz, Siegbert
Tarrasch and Emanuel Lasker, in its at least until 1945 Central European, and
with that principally as German characterized, context. This people can surely
see now, in May 1996, 51 years after the capitulation of Nazi Germany.
And Siegbert Tarrasch from
Breslau, truly "Praeceptor Mundi" of chess, would surely also have
seen it that way.
© Harald E. Balló |