Ado Kraemer

Adolf Herrmann Rudolf Ferdinand Kraemer, known as Ado Kraemer (* 23 March 1898 in Büdingen; † 25 June 1972 in Berlin), was a German chess composer and wine connoisseur.

Ado Kraemer is one of the most famous and popular chess composers in the history of problem chess.

He sometimes used the pseudonym Erna Quick.

Life
Until 1933:

Ado Kraemer attended the Wolfgang-Ernst-Gymnasium in Büdingen, from which he graduated on 8 June 1915 with the war maturity examination. From 1915 to 1918, he took part in the First World War as a war volunteer on the German Western Front with the Foot Artillery Regiment No. 3 (Mainz) and became a reserve officer. From 1919, he was a member of the Landsmannschaft Darmstadtia Gießen. Kraemer had also been active in the nationalist movement since 1919; he was a member of the anti-Semitic associations Organisation Consul and "Deutschvölkischer Schutz- und Trutzbund". He became a member of the NSDAP as early as 1931. After completing his agricultural studies with an additional examination for animal breeding inspectors at the University of Giessen and studying law, Ado Kraemer worked as a state animal breeding inspector in Detmold-Lippe and was head of the Lopshorn riding and driving school. From 1932, he was managing director of the Reichsbund Deutscher Diplomlandwirte in Berlin.

National Socialism:

Ado Kraemer was a member of the NSDAP (membership number 1,053,145) and the SS (membership number 75,536). By 1937 he had become an SS-Obersturmführer[4] and was appointed SS-Hauptsturmführer on 11 September 1938. From 1939 he was a government councillor in Karlsbad, and after a deployment in the Western campaign from 1942 he was a senior government councillor and senior agricultural school councillor in Posen. Kraemer was injured several times during the war. He was interned at the end of the war and released in 1948.

Wine functionary:

In the 1950s, Ado Kraemer became a board member of the Franconian Winegrowers' Association and co-founder of the Frankenwein-Frankenland association. Together with Heribert Schenk (editor of the Volksblatt in Würzburg), he started Die Deutsche Bocksbeutelkunde, of which he was initially secretary. The Franconian wine shield in gold was also created by Kraemer. He campaigned for the appointment and election of Franconian wine queens.

He received several awards for his services in this area, including the Franconian Wine Medal in Gold, the State Medal of the Bavarian Minister of State for Food, Agriculture and Forestry in Silver and the Max von Eyth Plaque.

Chess:
Ado Kraemer played chess in the Detmold chess club "Paulsen", which was founded in 1900, until he was one of the 14 founding members of the "Turm" chess club in Lage in 1926. There he was game director and press officer until 1930 and moved back to Detmold in 1931.

Kraemer created numerous compositions and often worked together with Erich Zepler, with whom he had a close friendship that continued after the Nazi era despite Zepler's Jewishness. In 1952, the two became joint honorary members of the Schwalbe Problem Chess Association, as they were "generally regarded as the two greatest living composers of the New German School and passionate advocates of the concept of the artistic character of the chess problem".

Source: German Wikipedia.

Significance as a chess composer:

Ado Kraemer is regarded as one of the most important representatives of modern German problem chess and one of the greatest in problem chess ever.