14 Facts About Rudolf Spielmann

Rudolf Spielmann was a Jewish-Austrian chess master of the romantic school, and chess writer.

Moritz Rudolf Spielmann was a newspaper editor in Vienna, and enjoyed playing chess in his spare time.

Rudolf Spielmann introduced Leopold and Rudolf to the game, and the latter quickly began to develop an aptitude for it.

Rudolf Spielmann was devoted to his nieces and nephews, although he never married or had children of his own.

Rudolf Spielmann was known as "The Master of Attack" and "The Last Knight of the King's Gambit".

Rudolf Spielmann was inordinately fond of the King's Gambit as well as the Vienna Game and continued using these openings after most elite players had abandoned them; he was the last master to make any serious use of the Center Game.

Rudolf Spielmann won 33 of the roughly 120 in which he played, including Abbazia 1912, Stockholm 1919; Bad Pistyan 1922; and Semmering 1926.

Rudolf Spielmann is remembered as the author of the classic book The Art of Sacrifice in Chess.

In 1934, Rudolf Spielmann fled Vienna due to rising pro-Nazi sympathies in the city and moved to the Netherlands.

Leopold Rudolf Spielmann was arrested, deported to the Flossenburg concentration camp and died in the Theresienstadt Ghetto a few years later.

Rudolf Spielmann managed to flee to Sweden with the help of a friend.

Rudolf Spielmann hoped to eventually reach England or the United States, and toiled hard to earn money for the overseas passage by playing exhibition matches, writing chess columns, and a book titled "Memories of a Chess Master".

Rudolf Spielmann became steadily more withdrawn and depressed, and one day in August 1942, he locked himself in his Stockholm apartment and did not emerge for a week.

Rudolf Spielmann was one of few players to have an even score against Capablanca, one of an even fewer number to win more than one game against him, and the only player to fulfill both of those.