I'd tend to agree, probably less than a 1% chance that he BELIEVED it. But whether he wrote it is a different question. Those odds seem a little higher.

No need to underthink. Alekhine's defence was far superior as evidenced by the fact that people are still employing it over 60 years later. Saying that he wrote them (oh, but I didn't mean them, I was just 'funning') under some sort of duress wouldn't have done him any good at all; it'd just make him look like an anti-semitic collaborator.

Alekhine vs Koltanowski, 1932

<Reti was applauded by the plurality of Anglo-Jewish intellectuals for his work Modern Ideas in Chess, just as Niemtsovitch had been for My System, and these people were particularly impressed by the absurd cry Reti invented, namely "We, the young masters" (he was then 34) "are not interested in rules but in exceptions." If this sentence makes sense at all, it means "We (or rather, I) know the rules governing the game of chess much too well. To carry on with further research in this field will be, in future, the task of the more feeble-minded of the chess community. But, I, the grandmaster, will devote myself exclusively to the more delicate filigree of brilliant exceptions, with my own clear elucidations." This cheap bluff, this shameless half-attempt at self-boosting, was swallowed without a struggle by a chess world already doped by Jewish journalists, the exulting cries of the Jews and their friends "Long Live Reti and the hyper-modern, neo-romantic chess!" finding an echo far and wide.>

Yeah, they kept Julius Streicher off the streets...

I suppose a more modern anti-Semite could then say sacrifice is like a form of 'usury' because the one giving the material expects to get it back with filthy interest.

In Crazyhouse, you never see games where one side grabs a pawn, hangs onto it and carries it to victory. Not because Jews don't play Crazyhouse (rolled eyes) but because those strategies are <less effective> in that game. They're less effective in Shogi too. The board is never simplified, and there are so many threats to consider all through the game that defensive materialistic strategies play fewer dividends. So, there's less tendency to play that way. It's got nothing to do with race or religion, it's all about the rules of the game and what wins games.

I'm curious as to the specifics of Le Monnier's claims. Did he say that the handwritten article appeared in a notebook, or in some other form? Writing in a notebook strikes me as a very odd manner of composition for publication--did he give the notebook to a typist to produce a copy for submission? I'd think that in the age of typewriters and carbon paper, an author who worked by hand would most likely simply submit his original and let the publisher go to the trouble and expense of typesetting. If Alekhine composed by hand, it seems a bit strange that he'd have retained a copy at all.

Wrong. Alekhine's several defenses were so inferior that people defending him now are compelled to resort to the one he never offered.

Well, in my case, in the past I have taken as a matter of fact that he had written the articles because I read elsewhere that manuscripts were found in possession of Grace Alekhine after her death in 1956. And as I have read those articles, I was wondering, how chess genius and brilliant chess writer could write such a piece of idiocy, which is absolutely inconsistent with everything else, what he had published on chess before, as well as after that. I was just trying to explain it to myself, and my conclusion was that he was forced to do it. But after making some research of my own into this matter, I have found out that the info on finding of manuscripts was unsubstantiated, or at least dubious, and practically based only on claims of two "witnesses" (Reilly and Le Monier), one of which (Reilly) denied allegations of Golombek and Hooper/Whyld that he saw the manuscripts in 1956, and the other came with his statement 28 years after the fact and after making statements contradictory to this one in the past. In light of this Alekhine's claim that the articles were Nazi fakes published under his name became again a legitimate hypothesis, and as far as I can say, quite possible.

The defense I am referring to is that the Nazis made him do it. Not that they faked the articles.

That's really a strange story to put it mildly. One has to ask here not only why he waited with such a disclosure so long and why he had written in 1973 that "we will never know", but also why would Grace Alekhine, who defended her late husband up to her death, preserve and pass to anybody such a incriminating material? She was not ignorant on chess being several times Paris lady champion, and she would hardly forgot to read carefully, what she was giving away. It doesn't sound much believable to me.

LTJ

In 1st half of 1993 Yusupov played a few of tournaments with mixed results, he wrote a new book of his series with Dvoretsky and his family had an addition - so it seems to me that he had made the best out of the situation.

LTJ

I find that quite intriguing.

See something that violates our rules? Blow the whistle and inform a moderator.