Hermann Ginninger

Hermann Ginninger (or Gininger?) (Rumania, 1906/07 - 1935)

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Chess composer of endgame studies

Composer of Bucharest, of romantic style, that in spite of having died very young, managed to compose a series of interesting chess studies.
Many of his works were characterized by the presence of abundant material that in several cases culminate in stalemate.

Timothy Whitworth (Whithworth, Timothy 1932) has done research (at the Koninklijke Bibliotheek in The Hague) about him where he has found that both his name and birthdate are not clear.

His report:

"Some information about Gininger is at odds with what we find in the pages of Revista Română de Şah in the 1930s.

The photocopies show that Hermann Ginninger (note the spelling of both the names) conducted the studies column in RRdeŞ from July 1933 to March 1935.

From April 1935, we find Anatole Ianovcic in charge of the column. In the June issue, dated June 25, 1935, at the bottom of page 139, there is a hurried last-minute announcement of the death of Hermann Gininger.

The next issue of RRdeŞ, dated July 20, 1935, carries an obituary of Gininger, telling us that he had died at the age of 28.

So we can say that Gininger probably died in June, or possibly in late May, 1935, and since he was aged 28 he must have been born (roughly speaking) in the second half of 1906 or the first half of 1907.

Without further information, the best we can do is to give his dates as 1906/07 - 1935.

The year of his birth has sometimes been given as 1911, not only on the ARVES website but also in reputable books.

Where did that date come from? Perhaps it came from a misreading of a piece about Gininger in Revista de Şah, No. 1 1959, page 15.

Here it is said that he died at the age of 28 but the “8” is so poorly printed that it looks like a “3”.

Fortunately, there is a genuine “3” a few lines below and a close inspection of the two digits shows up the difference between them.

So this article agrees that Gininger died at the age of 28.

It does, however, change the spelling of his name: here he has become Herman Ginninger.

The justification for this posthumous change escapes me.

I note that Kasparyan, an almost exact contemporary of Gininger, adhered to the earlier spelling in his anthologies.

This is how I did in my revised edition of Kubbel's studies."

Source: Website of ARVES: arves.org (editor Peter Boll)

Others: 13 endgame studies composed by him are selected on Website arves.org