Perspectives
by Burt Hochberg

A Man to Remember

When I first joined the Manhattan Chess Club--that was around
1960 or 1961--I was welcomed by the club Secretary, a tall, thin,
slightly stooped gentleman with a friendly smile and a deep voice
with a Viennese accent. For some reason I thought he was Max
Euwe, whom he very slightly resembled. "I am sorry to say I am
not," he said. "But he is a good friend of mine."

This man was Hans Kmoch, a gentleman of the old school. Since
he's been gone for 25 years now (he died in 1973), few if any of
my readers could have met him, although some may know his most
important and enduring books, *The Art of Defense in Chess*,
*Pawn Power in Chess*, and *Rubinstein's Chess Masterpieces*.

Hans Kmoch was born in 1894, an Austrian of Czech descent. He
enjoyed a moderately successful career as a player and achieved
the rank of international master (his best result was first place in
Debrecen 1925, ahead of Tartakower and Grnfeld, and he once
beat Rubinstein). He was better known and more influential,
however, as a journalist, theoretician, and tournament and match
arbiter. Among other important events, he was the arbiter for the
Euwe-Alekhine match in 1935, which Euwe won to become world
champion, and after emigrating to the United States he directed
many U.S. championships. In addition to the books mentioned
above, he also compiled the *Supplement* to Bilguer's famous
*Handbuch*, in its day the most influential work on opening
theory, a claim that applies as well to Kmoch's *Supplement*. As a
journalist, he reported on innumerable tournaments and analyzed
countless games for newspapers and magazines around the world.
For many years he conducted a game- analysis column in *Chess
Review* and later in *Chess Life* after the magazines merged.

Kmoch emigrated to the United States in the 1940s, and in 1951
was asked to become the Secretary of the Manhattan Chess Club.
Although he directed all the club tournaments and took care of the
myriad details of club operation, his greatest pleasure was
shmoozing with the club regulars during uneventful weekday
afternoons. It wasn't hard to persuade him to tell stories about the
chess personalities he had known, but his sense of gentlemanly
courtesy and honor prevented him from talking about those who
were still living. Alekhine, Capablanca, Lasker, Bogolyubov, and
other departed masters were fair game, as were interesting
characters of lesser accomplishment, but Fischer, to mention the
most prominent example, was off limits, though Kmoch knew him
well.

In his later years, Kmoch found walking difficult due to poor
circulation in his legs. On those evenings when he and I were the
last to leave the club, I would drive him to his apartment so that he
wouldn't have to try getting a taxi. During one of those drives I
suggested that a collection of his reminiscences would make an
interesting book. "*Na ja*," he said, using his favorite Viennese
all-purpose idiom (it means approximately "of course" or "all
right"). "I have already written it in German and have made a
rough translation."

We spoke no more about it, but when Kmoch died in 1973, I
obtained that manuscript, along with his other chess papers.
Kmoch's intention, as he explained in his introduction, was to write
only about players who were no longer living, to avoid any
possibility of offense. Although his recollections bring to life the
great players of the past and the times they lived in, and would be
enjoyed by anyone interested in chess history, I realized that no
commercial publisher would consider a book about dead chess
players that had virtually no chess in it. Nevertheless, at odd times
in the years that followed I worked on editing the manuscript,
thinking that I might publish a small edition myself one day if I
ever found the time. I never did, of course.

Then came Hanon Russell's offer to publish excerpts from
Kmoch's book in The Chess Cafe. With its emphasis on history,
The Chess Cafe provides an ideal outlet, enabling me to present
Kmoch's reminiscences to an audience presumably disposed to
appreciate them. This month in The Skittles Room you will find
the first of a series of excerpts from Kmoch's manuscript. Others
will follow at irregular intervals. 

I should point out that these excerpts have been heavily edited. The
manuscript I worked from was a rough draft of Kmoch's own
translation from the German, the language he preferred to write in.
His writing style was somewhat old-fashioned and perhaps too
genteel for today's readers. I tried to modernize it as much as
possible without destroying Kmoch's voice. Also, Kmoch referred
to many events that no doubt had significance for him but have no
relevance for modern readers. I deleted those that I considered
dispensable.

Kmoch lived and worked in Holland and other parts of Europe
from the 1920s to the early 1940s, a period that encompassed the
rise of Nazism. Like many others who lived in Europe at that time,
Kmoch was obsessed with Jewishness, and that obsession is
evident throughout his manuscript. Many well-known players were
Jews, and some who were not had Jewish-sounding names.
Kmoch's stories about Ernst Grnfeld, a non-Jew with a Jewish
name, is particularly telling. During the 1930s and early '40s in
central and eastern Europe, anyone who was Jewish or part Jewish
or might be suspected of being Jewish or was married to a Jew
lived in constant fear--and with good reason, as history has shown.
Kmoch, though not himself Jewish, was married to a Jew. The
anxiety that comes through so clearly in his manuscript, though
handled with a light touch, as was Kmoch's habit, is nevertheless
quite chilling.

I feel fortunate to have known Hans Kmoch and to have been able
to hear and read about the players I used to know only through
their games but now see vividly as human beings thanks to Kmoch.
And now, thanks to The Chess Cafe, you can see them too. 