Paul Baender

Paul Baender, Spanish: Pablo Baender (November 30, 1906, Rosdzin, now part of Katowice (now Polish: Roździeń, part of Szopienice-Burowiec (German: Schoppinitz)) – 18 December 1985, Berlin) was a German–Bolivian chess master and functionary.

Born in Rosdzin, Upper Silesia, he moved to Görlitz in 1921. When Nazis came to power in 1933, he being a Jew fled to Prague, Czechoslovakia. In November 1937, he emigrated to La Paz, Bolivia.[1] Baender played for Bolivia in the 8th Chess Olympiad at Buenos Aires 1939.[2]

After World War II, he came back to Germany (Soviet occupation zone) in 1947. He became a communist politician (Staatssekretär in 1950-1952) in German Democratic Republic, and also the President of the GDR Chess Federation (Präsident der Sektion Schach) until 1953.[3] He was arrested on 15 December 1952 during an anti-Semitic campaign. After Nikita Khrushchev's secret speech to the delegates to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in Moscow, he was freed in 1956.

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