Emil Josef Diemer

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Emil Joseph (Josef) Diemer (15 May 1908, Radolfzell - 10 October 1990, Fussbach/Gengenbach) was a German chess master.

In 1931 Diemer was out of work and decided to join the NSDAP, the German Nazi party. He was present at all important international chess events, and appeared in several Nazi newspapers and magazines. In 1942-1943, he played correspondence tournaments with Klaus Junge, among others.

After the war, he wrote in countless little magazines and papers, sold chess books, gave simuls, but soon found that it was difficult to support himself in this way. As a middle-tier master, his successes in chess were few. It was not until 1956, in the Netherlands, that Diemer finally enjoyed a true success, winning the Reserves Group of the Hoogovens tournament and later the Open Championship of the Netherlands. He became less interested in chess, and increasingly interested in Nostradamus, the famous 16th century French clairvoyant. 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.^[1]

Diemer played many unorthodox openings, like the Diemer-Duhm Gambit (1.d4 d5 2.e4 e6 3.c4) and the Alapin-Diemer Gambit (1.d4 e6 2.e4 d5 3.Be3), but is most famous for his refinements to an old idea by Armand Edward Blackmar (1. d4 d5 2. e4 dxe4 3. f3), commonly known as the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit (1. d4 d5 2. e4 dxe4 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. f3).^[2]

[edit] See also

The Brilliant Games of Emil Diemer. ^[3]

[edit] Literature

Georg Studier, Emil Josef Diemer. Ein Leben fuer das Schach im Spiegel der Zeiten, Manfred Maedler Verlag 1996 (Germany)
Dany Senechaud, EJ Diemer, missionaire des echecs acrobatique, Poitiers 1997 (France)^[4]