We are pleased to present, in two parts, chess historian
Harald E. Ball¢'s intriguing essay on Siegbert Tarrasch. Ballo
writes a month column on chess history that appears in the
"Deutsche Schachzeitung." You may reach him on the Internet at
100770.2665@compuserve.com or via regular mail at SpiessStrasse
34, D-63071, Offenbach/M., Germany. 


                       Siegbert Tarrasch 
               Chessplayer, Doctor, German, Jew 
                       by Harald E. Ball¢
                 Copyright 1996 Harald E. Ball¢
                      All Rights Reserved
                          Part I of II
Translated from the German by John van Manen (Australia) with the
help of Ken Whyld (England) and Hanon W. 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 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, 1914-1918, 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.
     [END, PART I]