<Mit 15 Jahren kam er nach Frankfurt am Main, wo er eine Banklehre absolvierte und von einem Onkel das Schachspielen erlernte. 1942 besiegte er in zwei Simultanpartien den auf einer Tournee befindlichen Schachweltmeister Alexander Aljechin, der in einem Schreiben an die Geschäftsführung des Großdeutschen Schachbundes über Niephaus äußerte: Nach Klaus Junge (Hamburg) habe ich in Deutschland noch keinen jungen Spieler ähnlicher Begabung getroffen.>

One game is here: Alekhine vs Niephaus, 1942 .

Did the other game survive?

<On the 11 April and on the following days, Alekhine gave exhibitions in the Frankfurt Palmengarten. In the first of these he played simultaneously against 39 opponents and in 3 1/2 hours, scored 35 wins, one draw and three losses. On the next day, at the request of the Grossdeutscher Schachbund he gave a talk on Capablanca in which he explained three of the ex-world champion's games on a demonstration board. Then he played simultaneously, six games with clocks against consulting opponents. In two hours he won three games, drew one and lost two. The winning teams were: Linnmann and Jung, and Schlensker, Werner, Lingel and Westphal. One of the players in the group that drew was W Niephaus a very promising player who was in his last year at school. In the displays at Frankfurt he scored 2 1/2 points from Alekhine. He also played a number of speed games with Alekhine and did quite well. Alekhine was very complimentary about his play and said: "I have played a large number of informal games with him in the last few days in which he acquitted himself very honourably. He has definitely reached master strength."

Eleven years later, under the heading "My Match with Dr Alekhine 1942," Niephaus annotated two games for <Schach-Echo> 1953, p180-1. He described them as the 1st and 3rd match games. Shortly after, Paul Schlensker, the magazine's collaborator from Frankfurt, who had also played in the displays in 1942, wrote in the magazine, ibid., p212, that these games had not been played in a match. The first was from a simultaneous display where Alekhine played against 40 opponents [11 April ?] and the second was a consultation game in which Alekhine and Schlensker played White against Niephaus and Rohrig. In his notes to this game, Niephaus had claimed that Alekhine was in great time trouble and had been very angry when he lost. Schlensker wrote that Alekhine was never in time trouble during the game and was in a happy mood throughout. Niephaus did not reply to this rebuttal of his claim to have played a match with Alekhine.>