Winfried E. Kuhn (Nordheim 21.08.1947 - 03.09.2004 Lüneburg)

Chess composer of chess problems

He was only 57 years old when he succumbed to cancer. 17 years earlier, he had started his impressive series of publications entitled Schachbrett - 1000 Schachaufgaben aus der Landeszeitung für die Lüneburger Heide 1967-1987 (Chessboard - 1000 chess problems from the Lüneburg Heath regional newspaper 1967-1987), which earned him great acclaim, but was sometimes met with a perplexed shake of the head, as some reviewers doubted the sense of such detailed documentation of more than just high-quality problems. Hans-Dieter Leiß, for example, wrote in the June 1987 issue of Schwalbe (p. 263) that he would have preferred less, i.e. a careful selection from the original problems. However, WEK remained true to his principle of completeness, especially in his books on the chess columns in the daily newspaper Welt and the magazine Stern and the Problemschach-Jahrbücher, which he compiled for the years 1992 to 2003 and in which the problems published in German daily newspapers were documented. In addition to the documentary writings, important original contributions such as the autobiography Mattbilder eines Lebens by László Lindner, Hermann Weißauer's Orlimont book, which appeared in two editions, Gerhard Willeke's Geschichte des deutschen Arbeiterschach etc., not forgetting the almost 500-page book he compiled on  The 1990 Die Schwalbe meeting in Lüneburg - The Kuhn-Murkisch series was continued at a reduced pace after WEK's death: 43 titles were published up to 1993, and volume 49 has recently become available. Godehard Murkisch's very personal obituary (Die Schwalbe Dec. 2004, issue 210, pages 599-601), to which reference is made here, shows that WEK was an extremely versatile and active person.

In memory of Winfried E. Kuhn
(*21.08.1947 Nordheim †3.09.2004 Lüneburg)

The problem world has once again suffered a painful loss: Problem friend Winfried E. Kuhn passed away after a serious illness on Friday, 3 September at the age of just 57.

While the long-time friend and companion of Godehard Murkisch had initially distinguished himself as a strong solver, the first publication in 1987 SCHACHBRETT - 1000 Schachaufgaben aus der Landeszeitung für die Lüneburger Heide (1967-1987) was the prelude to a tremendous publishing activity of WEK (as his name is widely known in the problem world) - it was the birth of the Kuhn/Murkisch series, an enthusiast's series in small(est) editions, which today has reached no. 42 (the above-mentioned no. 1 has had three further editions).

The series can be divided into 4 categories:

Collections of problems from daily newspapers
Collections of problems by individual composers
Problem chess yearbooks
Prize reports from problem tournaments
The following lists give an overview of the series: Kuhn/Murkisch Series I (jpg-file) and Kuhn/Murkisch Series II (pdf-file, created by R.B.; update January 2010).

The SCHWALBE meeting in Lüneburg in 1990, which he organised and documented in an extensive, generously illustrated congress book, must surely be seen as a hilight in WEK's chess life; however, only a few copies of a luxury edition of this book (with colour plates) exist.

In addition to problem chess, collecting and reading crime novels was another of WEK's passions: a few years ago, he himself stated that he had read well over 4500 crime novels in his life. In the column "Capablanca und ich - Schachkrimis, -erzählungen und anderes", which has appeared regularly in Problem-Forum - Zeitschrift für Freunde des Problemschachs since the magazine was founded in 2000, WEK found a platform for presenting works of chess fiction.

Winfried E. Kuhn and his problem chess legacy will remain in the memory of his many friends.