Internationaler Fernschachbund

The Internationaler Fernschachbund (IFSB) was an international correspondence chess organisation, founded in 1928. It was superseded in 1945 by the International Correspondence Chess Association and by the International Correspondence Chess Federation in 1951.

In August 1928 the Internationaler Correspondensschachbund (ICSB), was created under the leadership of Erich Otto Freienhagen in Berlin. This group had existed in a loose form since November 1927, and included J.W. Keemink, Hans Werner von Massow, K. Laue, C. Olsen and F. Schild. This was the first successful attempt to create an international correspondence chess federation. Unfortunately, it survived for only a short period, although its successor proved to be viable.

On 2 December 1928 a new federation was formed in Berlin. To distinguish it from its predecessor, it was named the Internationaler Fernschachbund. The founders were Dr. R. Duhrssen (first President), J. W. Keemink (second President), Hans Werner von Massow (first secretary), K. Laue (first Treasurer), and L. Probst (Managing Editor). It was said that the federation had been founded by "four madmen and a child", as von Massow was just 16 years old at the time. He was borm on 13/5/1912 (Gaige's "Chess Personaslia"). There appears to have been a major row at the December 1928 meeting which caused the splitting off of Freienhagen (and possibly others) from the Duhrssen "faction". Freienhagen continued to be active in organising correspondence chess until shortly before he died. He published "Brief-Schach" up to September 1932, but only some of these publications have survived and so our knowledge of his organisation is fragmentary.

Keemink was Dutch and the others were German. Freienhagen and other ICSB members had already left the group and Freienhagen died in May 1933. After this, correspondence chess players began joining IFSB. At that time, there was only individual membership and only later did it become possible for countries to be members.

The organization undertook several tasks:

Six months after it was established, the leaders of the IFSB met again, in Duisburg on 21 July 1929. There were now over 100 individual members.

Another meeting was held in Hamburg on 26 July 1930. Here K. Allmendinger and Dr. E. Dyckhoff, both German, joined the governing body, and F. Kunert (Austria), M. Seibold (Germany), Dr. K. Schørring (Denmark), V. Geier (Poland) and H.L. van Borgman (the Netherlands) came into the broader management. The 6-board national matches between Germany and Spain, and Germany and Austria were started in March 1931 under the auspices of the IFSB. This was the first step towards the future correspondence chess Olympiads, which from 1935 to the present day have been played on 6 boards.

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