3rd Unofficial Chess Olympiad

The 3rd unofficial Chess Olympiad was held by German Chess Federation (Grossdeutscher Schachbund) as a counterpart of the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin with reference to 1924 and 1928 events. FIDE’s position regarding the Munich Olympiad was set out on pages 10–11 of the minutes of its Congress in Warsaw in August 1935. In short, given that parts of the German Chess Federation’s statutes were anti-Semitic, FIDE could have no involvement in the Munich Olympiad. However, since Germany had agreed, for that event, to drop its ban on Jews, FIDE’s General Assembly voted to leave Federations free to decide whether or not to participate. Finally, many Jewish chess players took part in the event. Significantly, the "Jewish" teams of Hungary (i.e. L. Steiner, E. Steiner, Szabó, Gereben) and Poland (i.e. Frydman, Najdorf, Friedman, Kremer, Pogorieły) beat "Aryan" Germany. Also Jewish masters from other countries played leading role there (i.e. Movsas Feigins, Gunnar Friedemann, Imre König, Boris Kostić, Lodewijk Prins, Isakas Vistaneckis, Emil Zinner, etc.).

The Schach-Olympia 1936 took place in Munich between August 17 and September 1, 1936. In that extra-Olympiad (non-FIDE) 208 participants, representing 21 countries, played 1680 games. The Munich unofficial Olympiad was the biggest team competition ever held.