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Chess Story
Stefan Zweig's last masterpiece – created in 1941 in Brazilian exile. Individual materials can be downloaded here as PDF documents.
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Chess Story - A Small Work with Great Impact
1934: National Socialist students burn books by Jewish writers in Germany. Created when Jews and Jewish writers were persecuted, arrested and taken to concentration camps under German Nazi rule.
First, the pacifist Stefan Zweig's house in Salzburg was searched for weapons, then he and his family were forced into exile, his furniture was stolen and his books were banned, which had been translated into 56 languages. He left Austria and went first to England, then to America and finally tried to find peace in Brazil. There, in the last months of his life, this unique work was created.
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Chess Story - The Text Here in Original as PDF
Read Stefan Zweig's Chess Story in the original. The complete novella is available here as a PDF download.
Note: The download is for private use only. Reproduction is not permitted.
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🎧 Chess Story as an Audiobook
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Content and Psychological Depth
On a ship from New York to Buenos Aires, two chess players meet: Dr. B., an Austrian emigrant, and Mirko Czentovic, the reigning chess world champion. What begins as a harmless game turns into a psychological drama of tremendous depth.
Dr. B. tells his story: Arrested as a lawyer by the Gestapo, he is kept in solitary confinement for months. Only through the secret study of a chess book does he manage to survive mentally – but chess becomes his curse.
The novella shows how psychological torture destroys the human soul and how even the noblest mental occupations can become an obsession that drives people to madness.
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Films and Adaptations of Chess Story
Chess Story has been filmed multiple times and shows the lasting fascination of this psychological novella:
- 1960: German film adaptation with Curd Jürgens
- 1973: TV version with Klaus Maria Brandauer
- 1981: French film adaptation "Le Joueur d'échecs"
Each adaptation interprets the novella in its own way and shows the timeless relevance of Zweig's psychological masterpiece.
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Secondary Literature - Help for Every Paper
For anyone who wants to learn more about Stefan Zweig, read Stefan Zweig's "The World of Yesterday - Memories of a European." An autobiography and one of his last works. The book tells in an exciting way Zweig's life story from his school days in Vienna, his many encounters and finally life in exile. Really highly recommended.
Free Downloads:
Recommended Literature:
- • Study Guide Stefan Zweig: Chess Story
- • King's Explanations: Chess Story
- • The World of Yesterday (Zweig)
- • Models for Literature Teaching
Tip: Those who want to dive deeper should read Zweig's most important novellas, then some of the biographies listed here.
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Original Quotes and Comments from Personalities
Stefan Zweig on Chess Story:
"The subject is a story about the chessboard, I believe the first which was ever written on this subject. [...] it is a real pleasure to create a short story in such a virginal atmosphere, to raise the course of a chess game into the dramatic."
- Letter to Ben Huebsch, 1941
Original Quote from Chess Story:
"But is it not already an insult to call chess merely a game? Is it not also a science, an art, a unique combination of opposites, old and yet eternally new, mechanically constructed and yet only arising from fantasy, limited to a fixed geometric area and yet unlimited in its variations?"
Comment by Germanist Rüdiger Görner:
"Chess Story is a stroke of luck of mature narrative art."
Historical Background:
The historian Roman Sandgruber sees in the fate of the Jewish Viennese banker Louis Nathaniel von Rothschild, who was held in Gestapo solitary confinement at the Hotel Metropole for a total of 14 months from March 1938, the historical model for Chess Story.
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Required Reading in High Schools - Why Chess Story?
Chess Story is used as required reading in many high schools, as it addresses profound themes such as isolation, psychological torture and the effects of National Socialism. It offers students the opportunity to analyze and discuss historical and psychological aspects.
Didactic Goals:
- • Historical Reflection: Coming to terms with the Nazi era
- • Psychological Analysis: Consequences of isolation and torture
- • Literary Techniques: Frame narrative, symbolism
- • Ethical Discussion: Humanity vs. inhumanity
Educational Relevance:
- • Compact Length: Ideal for school teaching
- • Multi-layered: Various interpretive approaches
- • Relevance: Timeless themes such as torture and resistance
- • Interdisciplinary: German, History, Psychology
💡 Tip for Students:
Chess Story is particularly well-suited for presentations and papers, as it offers both literary and historical aspects. Pay particular attention to the symbolism of chess and the psychological development of Dr. B.
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Character Analysis - The Main Characters
The main characters of the novella are characterized very contrastingly: Dr. B. and the first-person narrator – cultivated and intelligent, Czentovic and McConnor – primitive, arrogant and greedy, but Czentovic is very effective in his specialty.
Dr. B. - The Emigrant:
- • Intellectual: Educated Viennese lawyer
- • Traumatized: Marked by Gestapo imprisonment
- • Chess Genius: Became a master through isolation
- • Broken: Chess becomes an obsession and a curse
Mirko Czentovic - The World Champion:
- • Uneducated: "Simple country lad"
- • Specialist: Extraordinary chess talent
- • Arrogant: Despises everything except chess
- • Contrast: Counterpart to Dr. B.'s intellectuality
Original Quote on Characterizing Czentovic:
"Soon the secret leaked out that this chess master in his private life was incapable of writing a sentence in any language without orthographic errors."
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