Erich Brunner

Erich Brunner, portrait from Henneberger/White/Hume: Alpine Chess, 1921
Anselm Erich Brunner (* 11 December 1885 in Plauen; † 16 May 1938 in Zurich)

was a significant German-Swiss chess  composer. He was one of the most important chess composers of the last century. 

Life

Brunner's grandfather Anselm Brunner came from Switzerland as an actor at the Braunschweig Court Theater. His father Wilhelm was the director of a curtain factory in Plauen. The family retained Swiss citizenship. In 1901, after his father's death, Brunner left the humanistic high school early to devote himself to studying music at the Leipzig Conservatory. When it came to playing the piano, he was close to being ready for a concert performance. It was not until 1910 that he subsequently passed his Abitur. He dropped out of his subsequent medical studies after three semesters. In 1915 he moved to Chemnitz because his future first wife, an Englishwoman and therefore an enemy foreigner during the war, was not allowed to live in Leipzig during the war, i.e. "near the Battle of the Nations Memorial".

In the fall of 1918, Brunner went to Switzerland on medical advice, as the food situation was better there, and lived in Ascona. In 1919 he married. His business ventures in Ascona, including a café on Lake Maggiore, were not successful and ultimately led to an “economic collapse”.In 1928 he separated from his wife and moved to Zurich. From 1929 to autumn 1937 he lived in Munich and worked on his game “Delta”, which he self-published and distributed. He was helped by his second wife Frieda Bernstein, with whom he had been married since 1929, but whom he was only able to marry in 1937 because the divorce from his first wife took so long.

In the last year of his life, the Brunners moved to Zurich, where Erich Brunner died of a stroke a few months after moving.

In his last years he worked on a book that he was no longer able to complete. Moriz Henneberger and Hans Klüver completed the project in his spirit.

His first chess problem in 1906

Erich Brunner published his first chess problem at the age of 21 in 1906 in the Leipziger Tageblatt.

In 1910 he met Walther von Holzhausen, Johannes Kohtz and other important chess composers in Leipzig. He was in constant correspondence with the former until his death.

Brunner was responsible for a whole series of topics of the New German school that are still fruitful today. He was the first to present the Brunner-Turton, named after him. Other topics originating from Brunner include the Brunner-Dresdner, employment control, inflection and the so-called Swiss idea.

Brunner also wrote several essays on chess composition and fairytale chess. He published around 600 chess problems.

The Brunner move

The classical roulette consists of a weaker white piece (usually the rook or bishop) being retreated on a line across an intersection point so that the stronger piece (usually the queen) can be placed in front. Johannes Kohtz and Carl Kockelkorn tried to realise this idea with two equal white pieces - which usually means with the two rooks - as early as 1903 in their book "The Indian Problem".

However, they did not succeed in realising the idea in a purposeful way; this was left to Brunner.

The diffraction
Brunner defined this theme as follows: "Black has two or more defences against a threat; among them are good and bad ones. The good ones are taken away from him by some kind of deflection." He developed this formulation of the theme using a simple chess problem.

The Brunner-Dresden

In the event of problems with the Dresden circle of ideas, a black defender is eliminated by steering. At the same time, however, a new defender (substitute defender) is brought in. The substitute defence has a disadvantage for Black (damage), so that a new mate becomes possible. In contrast to the bend, Black not only loses something (good defences), but also gains something (the substitute defence).

Friedrich Palitzsch's original form of the Dresden envisaged that the original defender has to move (is directed) and thus switches on the substitute defender. In the Brunner type of Dresden (Brunner-Dresdner), on the other hand, the substitute defender is himself directed: he switches off the original defender and switches himself on. Brunner has dealt with both the Palitzsch type of Dresdner and the Brunner shape named after him.

Brunner's chess variants
Brunner free chess
As early as 1921, Brunner proposed a chess variant with a changing starting position in the Swiss Chess Newspaper, a forerunner of Chess960, but in which the pieces are not drawn. In Brunner free chess, the players place the pieces alternately (behind the pawn row). White starts and places the first stone; Black can then choose axis or point symmetry, which remains binding for the following betting acts. Brunner spoke of “strip order” (axis symmetry) and “star order” (point symmetry). Black can then place the next stone (example: wKc1 – sKf8; sLa8 – wLh1 etc. with point symmetry or star order; or wKc1 – sKc8; sLa8 – wLa1 with axial symmetry or strip order). There are no restrictions regarding bishop or rook positions. Therefore, two bishops of the same color are possible in the same side; In this case, if there is axial symmetry, the bishops of White and Black cannot attack each other.

In his first essay on free chess[3], Brunner only provided for the right to castling if the king and rook positions correspond to the basic position of standard chess; Two months later[4] he proposed a generalization of castling: Now the king should be able to perform an “a-castling” with the rook closer to the a-file and an “h-castling” with the rook closer to the h-file. In the case of the "strip order", the result of castling was identical to that of standard chess (a-castling: White Kc1, Rd1, Black Kc8, Rd8; h-castling: White Kg1, Rf1, Black Kg8, Rf8). In the case of the “star order” there was a shift not for White, but for Black (a-castling: Kb8, Rc8; h-castling: Kf8, Re8)

There are a total of 10,080 possible basic positions. The Swiss Chess Newspaper even organized a remote chess tournament. However, this variant of chess could not last long.[5]

Brunner pointer chess
In 1924 Brunner designed another chess variant, pointer chess. Here the movements of the stones are limited by drawing lots or rolling the dice, which then applies to both players. For example, depending on the draw, the ladies can move in all straight and diagonal directions or only in part of these directions (for example: one line and two diagonals). The permitted pull directions are indicated by pointers (hence the name) or flags. The move can be completed by rotating the piece 90 degrees or multiples thereof, so that the directions allowed in the following move change. This chess variant enables a variety of completely new positions, especially since the basic formation should be chosen either by alternating placement, as in free chess, or even by free agreement between the opponents. Brunner even composed at least one chess problem for pointer chess. Long after his death, in 1954, it was published in a book on “New Non-Orthodox Chess Games,” which also included a chapter on Brunner's pointer chess.

literature
Hans Klüver: Erich Brunner - an artist and interpreter of the chess problem. Siegfried Engelhardt Verlag, Berlin-Frohnau 1958
Web links
Compositions by Erich Brunner on the Schwalbe PDB server
90 years of chess composition in Chemnitz (with picture) (PDF; 1.9 MB)
Moriz Henneberger: Line and area clearance with Erich Brunner. In: Swiss Chess Newspaper, Vol. 41 (1941), No. 7, pp. 101–105. On-line
Individual evidence
  Hans Klüver: Erich Brunner - an artist and interpreter of the chess problem, p. 123.
  Compositions and sources according to Hans Klüver: Erich Brunner - An artist and interpreter of the chess problem, pp. 151 and 152.
  The general symmetrical figure position. In: Schweizerische Schach-Zeitung, 21st year (1921), No. 7, p. 97 ff.
  General castling in free chess. In: Schweizerische Schach-Zeitung, 21st year (1921), No. 9, pp. 129–132.
  Hans Klüver: Erich Brunner - an artist and interpreter of the chess problem, p. 193; Thomas Brand: The forerunners of Chess960. In: Schach 5/2021, pp. 48–52, here: pp. 50–52.
  Hans Klüver: Erich Brunner - an artist and interpreter of the chess problem, p. 193 f.; What is meant is Joseph Boyer: Nouveaux jeux d’échecs non orthodoxes, self-published, Paris 1954.
  The Swallow, issue 246, December 2010; The large-scale industry of the Kingdom of Saxony in words and pictures, Volume II, Eckert & Pflug, Leipzig 1893, pp. 135–136, online on Wikisource.
  Hans Klüver: Erich Brunner - an artist and interpreter of the chess problem, p. 11.
  Hans Klüver: Erich Brunner - an artist and interpreter of the chess problem, p. 11.
  Much later, in 1975, “Delta” was taken over by Otto Maier Verlag Ravensburg and further developed into “Neo-Delta”. A guide to the no longer produced game is available online.
  German Chess Sheets 12/1938, p. 191.

Source: Germain Wikipedia

Others: On the Website of ARVES there are more information.

              4 endgame studies with solution by the great composer Erich Brunner are selected on Dutch Website ARVES