PREFACE OF THE AUTHOR
In the first years after the end of the war the field of artificially created chess problems, chess compositions, experienced a powerful upswing, especially in Germany, which is convincingly expressed in the unusual density of first-class creations. It is hardly possible even for specialists to fully survey the abundance of what many talented authors have created, especially since it is scattered across countless chess magazines and chess columns at home and abroad. For this reason alone the daring attempt made in this book to select what, in the selector's opinion, is of lasting value cannot provide a complete collection of the universally accepted best problems. That is not the author's aim either. He simply wants to promote artistic chess, to awaken interest in this independent branch of the royal game, which is still burdened with some unfounded prejudices, and — for this the best seemed good enough to him — to deepen the understanding of its beauties and ideas, which only some can use — the casual game player passes by indifferently, without realizing how much joy and intellectual pleasure he misses. By example of the most diverse compositions of high and highest quality it should also be shown that the modern chess problem by its very nature is much more than a mere chess puzzle; it can well provide the basis for shaping chess ideas according to the conditions and principles applicable to every kind of creative activity. Each of the presented compositions corresponds to a high degree to this conception of the chess problem as the artistic representation of chess thought in puzzle form. This alone was the guideline and criterion for inclusion in this book. On the other hand, belonging to a particular school or artistic movement, significance for theory or even the author's name played no essential role. Unfortunately, a certain arbitrary delimitation could not be avoided for purely practical reasons. Thus, only compositions by German authors were considered, and again only the so-called orthodox problems, i.e. game-legal tasks with the requirement "Mate in ... moves." The material compiled according to these points of view is divided into three sections by the number of moves. Within these the factual context determined the arrangement. It was not the author's plan to provide a systematics of problems or to write a textbook on problem composition. The comments accompanying the solutions can therefore be limited to the explanation of the essential content and generally do without value judgments. Of technical terms, which cannot be entirely avoided, only the most important and repeatedly occurring ones in the literature were used. Each is explained at a suitable place in the book, which can be easily found with the help of the attached technical term index. Longer theoretical elaborations were considered necessary only where an individual opinion deviating from the previous doctrinal view had to be justified. The chosen spatial arrangement of the diagrams and the text takes into account the reader who only truly enjoys a problem when he has solved it independently. On the other hand, it is intended to spare the one who wishes to study the problems with the appropriate commentary the tedious flipping back and forth; he need only place the pages between them vertically, and he has both side by side — apart from a few exceptions for technical reasons. The main part is preceded by a short outline of the development history of German problem chess with further illustrative examples. The author must thank his friends S. Brehmer, J. Breuer and B. Sommer for some valuable information.
