1,322 words
“Chess is like life, only life is a total war, and chess is a limited war.”
-Robert Fischer
Aleksander Alekhine was an outstanding Russian world chess champion, an opponent of Bolshevism, a grandmaster of the Third Reich, the author of an essay on “Aryan and Jewish chess”, and is rightly considered a chess legend. He is not only the only world champion who passed away with this title, but also the owner of the most stormy and tortuous biography of all the world’s chess celebrities.
Born in 1892 into a Moscow noble family, Alekhine entered the world chess elite at the age of 21, taking third place at the St. Petersburg tournament in 1914 after Emmanuel Lasker and Jose Raul Capablanca. The Bolshevik revolution almost ended his career at its peak. In the fall of 1918, he moved from Soviet Moscow to German-occupied Odessa. After the capture of Odessa by the Reds in April 1919, Alekhine was arrested by the Extraordinary Commission and sentenced to death. He was saved from certain death only by the intervention of a high-ranking Bolshevik who was fond of chess. Alekhine, who was released and returned to Moscow, was there in 1920. He was arrested a second time, an extremely commissian, on suspicion of being an employee of Denikin’s counterintelligence. Newly released and deciding not to tempt fate any longer, Alekhine in 1921, with the help of his wife, a Swiss journalist, managed to escape from Soviet Russia to Latvia. From there he headed to Germany, from which a few months later he moved to France, where he settled, receiving French citizenship in 1925.
In 1927, Alekhine won the world title match against the considered invincible Jose Raul Capablanca and then dominated the competition for several years, winning the biggest tournaments of his time by large margins over his opponents. Twice (in 1929 and 1933) Alekhine defended his title in matches against Efim Bogolyubov, in 1935 he lost the match to Max Euwe, but two years later he won in a rematch and held the title of world champion until his death.
Upon Alekhine’s return to Paris after his victory over Capablanca in 1927, a banquet was held in his honor at the Russian Club. The next day, emigrant newspapers published articles quoting Alekhine’s speech, who wished that “… the myth of the invincibility of the Bolsheviks would be dispelled, just as the myth of Capablanca’s invincibility would be dispelled.” Soon, an article by Nikolai Krylenko appeared in the Soviet magazine “Chess Bulletin”, which said: “After Alekhine’s speech at the Russian Club, everything is over with citizen Alekhine – he is our enemy, and from now on we must treat him only as an enemy.” However, relations between Alekhine and the Soviet authorities were not completely interrupted – the issue of his possible arrival at the tournament in Moscow or a match with the leading chess player of the USSR Mikhail Botvinnik was periodically discussed. An agreement with the latter was reached in 1938, but events that soon broke out canceled the plans of the parties.
In 1939, Alexander Alekhine’s older brother Alexey was shot in the USSR. Alekhine could not obtain any information about the fate of his sister, who also remained in Soviet Russia. When World War II began on September 1, 1939, Alekhine was in Argentina, where he participated in the Chess Olympiad as part of the French team. In January 1940, he returned to France and, after the German attack on it, volunteered for the French army as a translator. After the end of hostilities, he left the territory occupied by the Germans and settled in the south of France. At this moment, Alekhine’s cooperation with the German authorities begins. In an interview given a little later to the Spanish press, he mentioned the simultaneous playing sessions that he gave in Paris for the German army in the winter of 1940-1941.
While in exile, he wrote a chess column in the newspapers of Russian nationalists, Parizhskiy Vestnik (the journal of the Russian community in German-occupied France), and Novoe Slovo (the journal of the Russian emigration in the Third Reich since 1933).
At the beginning of 1941, Alekhine wrote a series of articles under the general title “Jewish and Aryan Chess”, which were published from March to July in German newspapers published in France and the Netherlands – Pariser Zeitung and Die Deutsche Zeitung in den Niederlanden, and then reprinted in the Deutsche Schachzeitung. This series of articles had the subtitle – “A psychological study of world chess champion Alekhine, based on chess experience, showing the lack of conceptual strength and courage among Jews.”
Their main idea was to contrast the offensive Aryan style of play with the defensive Jewish one, based on waiting for the opponent’s mistakes. Here are some excerpts from them:
What actually is Jewish chess and what is the concept of Jewish chess? This question is easy to answer: 1. Material gain at all costs. 2. Adaptation. Adaptation taken to the extreme, which seeks to exclude the slightest possibility of potential danger and pushes through the idea (if one can even use the word “idea” here) of defense as such. With this idea, which in any kind of struggle is tantamount to suicide, Jewish chess, in the light of the real future, dug its own grave.
Are Jews a nation particularly talented at chess? Having thirty years of experience behind me, I dare to answer this question as follows: yes, Jews have the highest ability to use their intelligence and practical acumen in chess. But there has never been a Jew who was a true chess artist.
During the return match with Euwe in 1937, the collective chess Jewry was again excited. Most of the Jewish masters mentioned in this review were present as reporters, coaches and seconds on Euwe’s side. By the beginning of the second match, I could no longer deceive myself: I was fighting not with Euwe, but with the united chess Jewry, and my decisive victory (10: 4) was a triumph over the Jewish conspiracy.
Alekhine cited, among others, Chigorin, Bogolyubov and Capablanca as examples of Aryan chess players, and Steinitz and Lasker as examples of Jewish ones. In an interview with the Spanish press in September 1941 before leaving for Munich for the European Chess Tournament, Alekhine stated that his series of articles was the first attempt in history to examine chess from a racial point of view. In another, he mentioned his intention to give a series of lectures on Aryan and Jewish chess. When asked about the chess players he most revered, he answered, in particular: “I will especially note the greatness of Capablanca, who was called upon to overthrow the Jew Lasker from the world chess throne.”
At the Munich European Chess Tournament in September 1941, in which Alekhine participated as a representative of Vichy France, his table was decorated with a swastika flag. In addition, Alekhine gave simultaneous playing sessions for Wehrmacht officers several times. He was especially patronized by the great chess lover Dr. Hans Frank, the Governor-General of occupied Poland, with whom Alekhine also played several games. In 1942-1943. his main place of residence was Prague. From the end of 1943, Alekhine lived mainly in Spain and Portugal, taking part in chess tournaments there as a representative of the Third Reich.
The end of World War II found Alekhine in Spain, from where he moved to Estoril, Portugal, in January 1946. In chess circles, a boycott and persecution campaign was launched against him for his collaboration with the Germans, but in February 1946 he received a challenge from Botvinnik to a match scheduled before the war and agreed. On March 23, 1946, the FIDE executive committee decided to hold the Alekhine-Botvinnik match in London in August of the same year, but the next morning Alekhine was found dead in his hotel room. According to the official medical report, he died of asphyxia caused by a piece of steak, while a number of newspapers listed the cause of death as angina or heart failure. Thus ended the path of the outstanding Russian chess player and theorist Alexander Alekhine.
Translated from https://wotanjugend.info/
18 comments
You know, Alekhine was one of these people the usual suspects were after. It sort of explains a lot about his life. The book Chess Story by Zweig is about this at a cabalistic level. Also, of course Fischer. If you watch Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger, the baboon represents Fischer. “My brother has been a brilliant chess player since the age of 7!” Lol! The hyperborean represents the usual suspects. They tell me there are two other notable players they were after.
Make no mistakes, they always do their utmost to destroy people (of any race or nationality) whom they seem dangerous to their collective wellbeing and future. I do not blame them for this but their conduct is the complete opposite of what we can define as noble.
The book Chess Story by Zweig is about this at a cabalistic level.
What do you mean? I read the NYRB reprint of Chess Story in one sitting in a public library a year or so pre-Covid. Its plot is certainly not very memorable (delirium over chess or something). You’re saying Zweig (a Jew) was depicting the Jewish approach to chess as cabbalistic?
An interesting review of a figure I’d never heard of.
Is it funny that “Euwe” is literally pronounced “oy veh” in German? 🙂
I got a chuckle out of it. 🙂
Interesting stuff and theory, “Aryans” attack directly, while Jews deliberately and surreptitiously let their opponents run to their doom. They choose the indirect route by scattering ideological traps and mines, setting up honey pots, and only have to wait for their victims to step into them.
https://de.zxc.wiki/wiki/Ins_Fettn%C3%A4pfchen_treten
https://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/frank.html
Although my enthusiasm for the “sport” of chess is limited, I do recognize the enormous power of this ancient archaic “Indo-Aryan” purely spiritual struggle. Especially because you can derive such wonderful metaphors from it (“checkmate for the queen in the game”).
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLsrLbjxqAJMbNdFerSaDjIGO4QMV2uXx
The best thing I ever experienced was a German TV series called “Chess of the Grandmasters”, which ran from 1983 to 2005 because it was then canceled without replacement (apparently as too intellectually demanding for a now dumbed-down audience).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_of_the_Grandmasters
What’s more, the innuendos and old man jokes that were constantly used were no longer considered acceptable. Those were the good old days when a man was still “allowed” to be a man. All forbidden now. https://de.zxc.wiki/wiki/Herrenwitz
Czech “Vlasti” Hort was also able to score points rhetorically in his endearing accent.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOLmYp-s1ewQd639cy88uSnOPKOVihwM4
Rainer Brandt has just died, a “grand master” of this genre, of incredibly funny wordplay and raunchy innuendo that was never vulgar, tasteless or obscene, as we knew it from ribaldry cannons like Fips Asmussen or Karl Dall. https://de.zxc.wiki/wiki/Schnodderdeutsch
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Schnodder
https://www.bluewin.ch/en/news/dubbing-legend-rainer-brandt-is-dead-2317639.html
Ultimately, all Jewish capitalism (in the “speculative” sense) is based on a kind of feminine, indirect, passive-aggressive attack strategy: “What can I do that you’re giving me all your wealth? It’s your own fault because of your own ignorance!”
There, too, a huge effort is made to mislead customers, suggesting all kinds of “needs” that they did not have before seeing the beautiful, glittering, colorful advertising. It’s all about the design of the packaging, the contents ultimately remain the same and at most vary “in taste”.
A car only ever has four wheels, an engine and a steering wheel. But in the age of individualism, everyone wants to “stand out”. In the end, they have bought nothing but junk, which will be worth nothing in a very short time because the next trend will already have started.
Recently, a deaf reader of CC complained about a lack of suntit
I would love it if someone would read these deep dive articles for a podcast. (What about AI?) This looks fascinating, but, you know, housework. Contra JD Vance, not all cat ladies are childless. And I need to make time for the royal game, too. None of my kids have beaten me yet, and I mean to stave off the inevitable for as long as possible.
Thank you for a very interesting article. Keep writing for Counter-currents about forgotten figures of history. I’d love to read it. And I’d love to meet you in person at the next Asgardsrei.
I know AA’s death prompted many conspiracy theories at the time.
There is the legend that he killed himself to die world champion. he was also a really bad alcoholic. There’s another rumor that in a drunken stupor, he wrote letters to Hitler and Stalin, praising each’s form of government as the best, but then he mixed up the letters and sent the opposite letters to Hitler and Stalin! I think I understand why he did this, though. Chess masters are sort of like tigers. When they get old and weak, they can no longer win major tournaments to make money. Capablanca was given an ambassadorship by the Cuban government and a stipend for life. Alekhine wanted the same thing and wasn’t particular where it came from. He didn’t really care what government he worked for. Being devoted to chess, I doubt he cared about temporal matters very much at all.
Long live the good memory of Alexander Alekhine. Thanks for publishing this.
Another man who deserves praise for preserving the legacy of Alexander Alekhine is Conel Hugh O’Donel Alexander, he of Bletchley Park and Enigma code-breaking fame. Alexander completed Alekhine’s two great books of his own games with a good third book, Alekhine’s Best Games of Chess : 1938–1945. This has been published independently and also bound together with Alekhine’s two books as a full survey of a great chess career, including the war years.
C. H. O’D. Alexander had a sense of sportsmanship we don’t see much of nowadays. He didn’t see Alekhine as an anti-Semite who had to be stripped of all humanity. Alexander could see the man on the other side as a champion who deserved to be remembered as a champion, and since Alekhine couldn’t write his third biographical chess book a code-breaker (and very good chess player) on the other side did it for him.
Alexander Alekhine’s ideas on the character of Jewish and Aryan chess were rendered out of date or at least hard to defend by the chess of the eighth world chess champion Mikhail Tal, who was both as Jewish and as attack-minded as anyone could ask for. (Other great players such as Gary Kasparov have underlined this.)
But Alekhine was not just being silly. Besides Alexander Alekhine another world chess champion has had opinions on Jewish and Aryan Chess. Boris Spassky has written very little (probably wisely), but he did say in an interview that he didn’t believe in any “Soviet School of Chess,” but rather he distinguished between Jews and non-Jews. Spassky praised Jews such as Richard Reti for being “serious” and “fundamental” while condemning Whites such as himself for having a streak of “romanticism.”
Spassky’s views are in line with the Jewish book You Gentiles, which also distinguished between a Jewish spirit and a White spirit, with the latter being condemned for treating life as a game and for having un-Jewish values such as good sportsmanship. Spassky’s views are also in line with his tendency to harsh self-criticism.
Anyway, Alexander Alekhine is not alone in having seen Jewish and Aryan chess as distinguishable things; another highly qualified expert saw things in a similar way.
Are you a chess player too? I think maybe there is a difference between Jewish and Aryan chess, with Jews being (on average)much more tactical and Aryans positional. But I think this difference indicates underlying genetic cognitive characteristics, rather than any sort of life or cultural philosophy, inasmuch as one comes from the other. After all, isn’t the romantic better in chess? Chess is supposed to be for fun, not a mathematical proof to be solved. The Soviets, of course, had this strange philosophy of chess as a business, which stemmed from the abnormalities of their economic system, which clouds Spassky’s thinking on this matter.
These differences are seen more broadly in life. Are they not? Jews tend not to care for things that are romantic, such as poetry or fantasy literature, but are much more into analytical subjects, such as mathematics or finance.
But there has never been a Jew who was a true chess artist.
**
Art in chess isn’t synonyms with art as it is commonly understood. I don’t think IQ really represents wisdom, after all it is perfectly compatible with self-deception, while the true wisdom should consist of understanding oneself. But with very high IQ + some other skills Kasparov definitely created some great games which can be desired as the real chess art.
Counter Currents chess tournament happening when?
On the topic of ethnicity in chess, while I do think there is some qualitative difference between Jewish and Aryan chess, although I don’t make too much of it, a question I find more worth pondering is the position of Germans within chess. Germans pretty much stand at the Apex of virtually every artistic and scientific endeavor, right? Or at least some German figure. Perhaps in poetry the English can surpass them. However, in chess, there’s never really been a national German world champion who was not Jewish, or really any world champion class player since the 19th century. Why is this?
I speculate that it has something to do with the quality of mind of the Germans. Germans of first rank mind philosophically realize that chess is a trivial activity and not worth prolonged endeavor.
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