Gordon Crown, England's lost talent, remembered

[NickFaulks]

I assume he wrote that unaware that Eliskases was an enthusiastic Nazi (even compared to the somewhat more ambiguous Alekhine)

Is there any evidence for that? Mere survival under the local regime won't do.

[Roger de Coverly]

Is there any evidence for that? Mere survival under the local regime won't do.

Unlike Alexander and Milner-Barry, who were perhaps under orders to report at Bletchley Park if war broke out, he was one of the many chess players to sit it out in South America. He'd become German after the Anshluss, but Keres became "Russian" under vaguely similar circumstances.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Eliskases

[Matt Mackenzie]

I assume he wrote that unaware that Eliskases was an enthusiastic Nazi (even compared to the somewhat more ambiguous Alekhine)

Is there any evidence for that? Mere survival under the local regime won't do.

Well he was on record as saying that Spielmann shouldn't be picked to play for the Austrian side in the Olympiads as he was the "wrong sort of person" (or some such phrase) I wonder what he could have meant by that?

[NickFaulks]

Unlike Alexander and Milner-Barry, who were perhaps under orders to report at Bletchley Park if war broke out

and who, as patriotic Brits, would certainly have gone home anyway

he was one of the many chess players to sit it out in South America.

Hardly the action of an "enthusiastic Nazi". Remember, at that point the Germans were confident that they were going to win.

[Gerard Killoran]

Another Crown game from Hastings 1946/47

[Event "Hastings 46/47 Premier Reserves 'B'"] [Site "Hastings"] [Date "1947.01.??"] [Round "?"] [White "Crown, Gordon Thomas"] [Black "Wenman, Francis Percival"] [Result "1-0"] 1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Nd5 3. d4 d6 4. Nf3 Bf5 5. Bd3 Bxd3 6. Qxd3 Nc6 7. c4 Ndb4 8. Qb3 a5 9. a3 a4 10. Qd1 Na6 11. e6 fxe6 12. Ng5 Qd7 13. Be3 e5 14. d5 Nd8 15. Qf3 g6 16. g4 Bg7 17. h4 Rf8 18. Qe4 Nc5 19. Bxc5 Rf4 20. Qe2 dxc5 21. f3 h6 22. Ne4 b6 23. Nbc3 Nb7 24. Rd1 Nd6 25. Qd3 Nxe4 26. Nxe4 O-O-O 27. b4 Rdf8 28. Rf1 h5 29. bxc5 hxg4 30. c6 Qf5 31. c5 Rxf3 32. Rxf3 gxf3 33. cxb6 f2+ 34. Kf1 Kd8 35. b7 {Hastings and St Leonards Observer - Saturday 11 January 1947 p.1} 1-0

[Leonard Barden]

I assume he wrote that unaware that Eliskases was an enthusiastic Nazi (even compared to the somewhat more ambiguous Alekhine)

Is there any evidence for that? Mere survival under the local regime won't do.

Well he was on record as saying that Spielmann shouldn't be picked to play for the Austrian side in the Olympiads as he was the "wrong sort of person" (or some such phrase) I wonder what he could have meant by that?

I intended to reply to this comment at the time it was made, but never got round to it.

Both Eliskases (Bd 2) and Spielmann (Bd3) played on the Austrian team at the Warsaw Olympiad 1935 (Ernst Grunfeld Bd 1).

Spielmann was absent from the eight-board team in the unofficial Olympiad at Munich 1936, but that would be understandable as to be Jewish in Germany at that time was already a physical risk.

Austria did not send a team to the Stockholm Olympiad 1937.

I have never heard Matt's quoted comment before reading his post, and would want to see the evidence when and where the Olympiad team remark was made. The implication is that it would have been in 1936 or 1937, but Eliskases and Spielmann actually played 10-game matches together in both of those years, Eliskases winning 5.5-4.5 in 1936 and 6-4 in 1937. This does not sound very compatible with the allegation in the post.

By Buenos Aires 1939 the Anschluss had taken place and Eliskases played top board for the German team which won the Olympiad gold medals.

Although many players returned to Europe in 1939, quite a few including Eliskases stayed in South America. During that time one job he did was to act as referee of Najdorf's record 1947 blindfold exhibition, which would have been a strange act from a Nazi given that one of the record's objectives was to try to contact any surviving Najdorf relatives from concentration camps.

Finally, a personal memory: at Helsinki 1952 I had arranged with Barry Wood to try to secure some annotated games for CHESS. The only way to achieve that in practice was to buttonhole the GMs, ask them to go through the game, scribble down the variations as they went along, and write the game up later as a normal annotation by the player.

Thus the CHESS report on the Olympiad came with a bulging list of famous names. I had particular luck on the free day boat trip round the islands It was then that I approached Eliskases, now third board behind Najdorf and Bolbochan for the silver medallists Argentina, a little fearfully, for I had read BH's claim made some years before that he was a convinced Nazi.

I need not have worried. Eliskases was friendly and articulate, spoke excellent English, and took more trouble than anyone else I approached to ensure that I had time to write down his very clear explanatory comments. I forget the opponent, but hopefully my memory is right and the game can be found in an issue of CHESS in late 1952.

My conclusion is that if he was a Nazi, that was probably an ideology he adopted, as did many others, to ensure his own professional survival.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Thank you for that post, Leonard.

Unfortunately I cannot source the claim, but have seen it cited more than once.

Your final point certainly has a plausible ring of truth to it.