Germany won bronze in Munich. In a history feature for ChessBase published on October 11, 2026, André Schulz looks back at the 1936 team event that FIDE never recognized as a Chess Olympiad. Its backstory runs through the Nazi takeover of German chess.
According to Schulz, the Munich tournament holds a special place among all Olympiads. National teams competed under conditions that met every requirement, yet FIDE withheld official recognition.
The German team took the bronze medal in 1936, ChessBase noted, the same medal Germany collected at the 2026 Olympiad.
The organizers, the Greater German Chess Federation (GSB), went ahead with the event in 1936 and used the Chess Olympiad name anyway. FIDE allowed its member federations to choose for themselves whether to send teams.
How Nazi rule reshaped German chess
Soon after the National Socialists took power, the Greater German Chess Federation took the place of the German Chess Federation in April or May 1933, as part of bringing institutions into line.
Otto Zander became federation leader and stayed in charge until a fatal car crash in 1938.
At the GSB's founding meeting in July 1933, Zander announced that Jews would be excluded from organized chess, Schulz writes.
Joseph Goebbels had become the federation's honorary chairman at the end of May 1933. ChessBase reads this as a sign that the Reich leadership considered organized chess of some importance.
FIDE says no in Warsaw
The team tournament was planned to accompany the 1936 Olympic Games. The GSB, however, had been outside FIDE since 1933, so in 1935 it applied to rejoin the world federation.
Delegates argued over the application at the FIDE Congress held during the 1935 Olympiad in Warsaw. German racial laws and the GSB's ban on Jewish players clashed with FIDE's statutes, so the bid was turned down for the time being.
Without membership, Germany sent no team to the Olympiads in Folkestone in 1933, Warsaw in 1935 or Stockholm in 1937.
Germany back in 1939
At its 1938 Congress, FIDE shifted toward what Schulz describes as a more pragmatic line. The GSB rejoined and sent a team to Buenos Aires for the 1939 Olympiad.
There Germany won gold, three years after its bronze in a Munich event that FIDE never counted as official. The full ChessBase feature includes photos by Ferenc Chalupetzky and from the tournament book.
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