Julius Mendheim

August Julius Mendheim (* c. 1781; † 25 August 1836 in Berlin) was a German chess player and problem composer. He is considered the first Prussian chess master and forerunner of the Berlin Chess School.

Biography
Very little is known about the life of Mendheim, who came from a Jewish family. He is said to have lived in Berlin since 1810. Mendheim was supposedly a merchant, but the few written references also describe him as a "particulier" or private individual. Apparently his financial circumstances allowed him to devote himself entirely to chess. In later years of his life, Mendheim complained about his poor health, which prevented him from working. A portrait has not survived.

Chess publications
In 1814, he published a pocket book for chess enthusiasts in the publishing house of Alexander Mosar (1772-1869), who was known as a chess teacher. The publication included a collection of Mendheim's chess compositions. In 1832, he had a sequel published by Trautwein under the title Aufgaben für Schachspieler. The appendix to this book contained an annotated correspondence game between the chess clubs of Berlin and Breslau (the first game of the match mentioned below).

Significance as a chess composer
The praise for Mendheim also extended to his merits in the field of chess composition. In this respect, Mendheim can be regarded as a continuator of the tradition of the medieval manuscripts and Philipp Stamma. In contrast to the modern type of problem, the first section of his Taschenbuch für Schachfreunde contained twenty problems demanding a pawn mate, while the second included 31 problems with various conditions. In contrast, Mendheim could have omitted most of the conditions in the later sequel, the problems for chess players, because here the only win coincided with the mate. Mendheim said of these problems that "most of them can be solved according to the ordinary laws of chess."  With his direct mating problems and a series of endgame studies, Mendheim was also on the threshold of a new era in the field of chess composition.