Gerhard Paul Latzel (* 28 August 1912 in Breslau; † 14 September 1980 in Altmühltal) was a German chess composer.

Chess composition
Latzel began composing chess exercises at the age of 15. In 1930, Latzel became a member of the Die Schwalbe association and was treasurer for some time. He was responsible for chess composition in the chess column of the Lippische Landes-Zeitung.

In 1958 he was appointed international adjudicator for chess composition. In addition to numerous two-move pieces, he composed multiple-move pieces, and later he also worked on auxiliary mate problems. Many were included in the FIDE albums, where he achieved 29.5 points. In 1975 he became International Master of Chess Compositions.

Latzel composed in all genres (around 800 published chess problems) and was an international arbiter.

The Latzel theme
The Latzel theme is a twomover theme:
The key pins a and unpins b and threatens to mate by pinning a through a piece A. b pins A and unpins a piece that mates.

Private life
Latzel was a senior tax councillor by profession.

In 1980, Latzel was at the FIDE conference in Wiener Neustadt. On his return, he drove over the motorway where a traffic jam had formed in the Altmühltal. A horse panicked there and fatally kicked Latzel in the head while he was in his car.

Source: de.wikipedia.org