Dutch Treat
by Hans Ree

EMIL JOSEPH DIEMER

Those who think that all chessplayers are mad, will not change
their opinion after studying the life of Emil Joseph Diemer. Diemer
was born in 1908 in the German town Radolfzell, in Baden.
Already at a young age he was a passionate chessplayer, but it was
not until 1932 that he had a game published. Until 1956 his
greatest success was a first place in the blitz championship of
Baden. In his best period he could be considered a mediocre
master.

Very strong Diemer certainly was not. Nevertheless, in the fifties
and sixties he had a flock of disciples in Germany and also in the
Netherlands. He was the prophet of relentless aggression in chess.
"Play the Blackmar- Diemer gambit and mate will come by itself!"
he wrote. "The Blackmar gambit changes the whole man!" In this
he was completely serious. In 1996 the German Manfred Mdler
Verlag published a biography of Diemer, written by one of his
most faithful followers, Georg Studier: "Emil Joseph Diemer. Ein
Leben fr das Schach im Spiegel der Zeiten." (A life for chess in
the mirror of time) The biography has 280 pages. Some world
champions are still waiting for such homage.

Studier has great admiration and sympathy for Diemer. He calls
him a man of unusual genius. Diemer's simul tours are described as
triumphal processions. Still the book has not become a
hagiography, because there was too much in Diemer's life which is
repulsive and which Studier couldn't and wouldn't suppress.

In 1931 Diemer was out of work. He had been fired from a small
job at a publisher's house. He was not fit for a job. Like many other
malcontents he became a member of the NSDAP, the German Nazi
party, and was thrown out of the house by his father the same day.

Diemer was never well able to take care of himself, but as a Nazi it
was easier than before. Not that he had become a party member out
of opportunism. He was a fanatic, in everything he did. He was a
relentless agitator for the party in the years that the Nazi's
romantically called the "Kampfzeit," the years of struggle before
they took power. Diemer made new friends and now it was
possible for him to become a professional chessplayer. He became
the "chess reporter of the Great German Reich," was present at all
important international chess events and sang the praise of
"Kampfschach," chess as a struggle, in the Nazi newspapers and
magazines. He did not earn much money and even then he was
dependent, as he would be till the end of his life, on admirers to
support him in his penury.

After the war it became more difficult. Diemer wrote in countless
little magazines and papers, sold chess books, gave simuls, but
often he was hungry. He was simply not strong enough to be a
chess professional. And in 1953 he lost an important part of his
small income because he was expelled from the German chess
federation. In a rabid press campaign Diemer had accused officials
of the federation of homosexuality and corruption of innocent
youth. For Diemer, who later told his biographer Studier that he
had never physically loved a woman, homosexuality was a great
and threatening evil. He did not only abstain from love but also
from drinking and smoking. He played chess.

Success he had not, but there were disciples who wrote passionate
polemics about the merits of the Blackmar-Diemer gambit, 1. d4
d5 2. e4 dxe4 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. f3. For one year, from 1955 till 1956,
Diemer published his own magazine, "Blackmar-Gemeinde"
(Blackmar-Community), that he had to close down when his
creditors became too impatient. Everyone of importance in the
chess world was bombarded by Diemer with letters that contained
endless analyses of his gambit. He found recognition, even in the
Netherlands, where the company Ten Have published Diemer's
German-language book "Vom ersten Zug an auf Matt" (From the
first move going for mate).

It was in the Netherlands that Diemer in 1956 finally became
successful in chess. He won the Reserves Group of the Hoogovens
tournament and later the Open Championship of the Netherlands.
In the same year he played in the Swiss Championship (after being
banned from the German federation he had become a member of a
Swiss club) and shared second place.

These successes were not to be repeated. After a disappointing
tournament in England, Diemer discovered in a German women's
magazine the cause of his bad score. Biorhythm. After that his
chess friends were bombarded with biorhythmical calculations and
graphs. Furthermore, Diemer discovered Nostradamus, the famous
16th century French clairvoyant. In a period of 25 years he sent
about ten thousand letters on Nostradamus. They contained
calculations hard to follow for the outsider. By means of a simple
system, a=1, b=2 etc, he had cracked the code of the great
clairvoyant. Even well- meaning friends found it strange that the
code would be hidden in the German translation, instead of the
original French text.

Nostradamus was to dominate Diemer's life, even more so then
chess. On the streets he accosted unsuspecting pedestrians. He
disturbed a funeral by shouting: "A living one is buried here!" He
lamented that the river Rhine would run dry and that nuclear
bombs would fall on Heidelberg. The authorities of town and
province loathed the ringing of the phone, in fear that it might be
Diemer, announcing the apocalypse.

 In 1965 he was committed to a psychiatric clinic. The director
found that chess was too much of a strain for Diemer's nerves and
he was not permitted to play anymore. But six years later a miracle
happened. In 1971 a young admirer brought about the cancellation
of both the clinic's interdiction and the expulsion from the German
chess federation. Diemer could become a member of a German
chess club again and his young admirer had seen to it that he got
first board on the team. Diemer was given the new dentures that
had been promised to him in 1952 by a rich admirer. He was
playing again and his board was always surrounded by young
disciples who were delighted by his attacking style.

His strength in chess had suffered, but he did not mind. One day he
might become the best player in the world, he said, but more
important to him was the Nobel Prize that he expected for his
investigations on Nostradamus' works.

He died in 1990. He had not played chess during his last five years.
In Fussbach, the site of his clinic, the villagers had seen him
stumbling through the streets, tall and thin, with prophet's beard
and half-blind, and they had respected Diemer, because they had
heard by rumor that this man once had been a great chessplayer,
maybe the greatest of all.

That he was certainly not, but a remarkable player he was, with his
glaring one-sidedness, always looking for the attack and for
nothing else. Here is Diemer's last tournament game, played in
1984. Studier gives it in his book "without distracting
commentary" and he is right to do so, because one should not
clinically dissect an amazing game like this. White: Diemer Black:
Heiling 1. d2-d4 Ng8-f6 2. f2-f3 d7-d6 3. e2-e4 g7-g6 4.g2-g4
Bf8-g7 5. g4-g5 Nf6-d7 6. f3-f4 c7-c5 7. d4-d5 b7-b5 8. c2-c3
a7-a6 9. h2-h4 Nd7-b6 10. h4-h5 e7-e6 11. h5-h6 Bg7-f8 12. a2-a4
e6xd5 13. a4-a5 Nb6-d7 14. e4xd5 Bf8-e7 15. c2-c4 f7-f6 16.
c4xb5 f6xg5 17. f4-f5 (See Diagram) Seventeen pawn moves in a
row, probably a world record. 17...g6xf5 18.Qd1-h5+ Ke8-f8 19.
Ng1-f3 Rh8-g8 20. b5-b6 Bc8-b7 21. Nb1-c3 Nd7-f6 22. Nf3xg5
Nf6xh5 23. Ng5-e6+ Kf8-e8 24. Ne6xd8 Nh5-g3 25. Nd6xb7
Ng3xh1 26.Bc1-f4 Rg8-g6 27. 0-0-0 Nh1-f2 28. Rd1-e1 Ke8-d7
29. Nc3-b5 Nf2-e4 30. Re1xe4 Rg6-g1 31. Re4-e1 Rg1xf1 32.
Re1xf1 a6xb5 33. Rf1-g1 Kd7-c8 34. Nb7xd6+ Be7xd6 35.
Bf4xd6 Nb8-d7 36. Rg1-g8+ Kc8-b7 37. Rg8-g7 Kb7-c8 38.
Rg7xh7 Ra8xa5 39. b6-b7+ Kc8xb7 40. Rh7xd7+ Kb7-c8 41.
h6-h7 Ra5-a1+ 42.Kc1-c2 Kc8xd7 43. h7-h8Q Kd7xd6 44.
Qh8-d8+ Kd6-e5 45. d5-d6 Black resigned. 

This column first appeared in the Dutch newspaper
"NRC-Handelsblad" on Saturday, November 30, 1996. Copyright
1996 Hans Ree, All Rights Reserved.

