Berlin Championship 1940 crosstable: http://www.schachbund.de/chronik/19...

Were there specific records of German 1944 military campaigns (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lubli...) attached? And regardless of that can you/one find any chess related 'reporting' after 1942 (he became Berlin Chess Champion)?

Seems the 'worst' (re-occupation) was over for about 4-9 month prior to that given date in June 1944 around 'Khodoriv (dt.Chodoriw)'. To my defense I just gave the matter a fairly cursory reading.

Eastern Front
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...

Oral history interview
(Jewish contemporary witness) in 1986
https://collections.ushmm.org/searc...

Grammatikoff handwiting (including a game)
http://www.klittich-pfankuch.de/Bil... http://www.klittich-pfankuch.de/Bil...

Hinting he was a 'Berliner' (Berlin-Reinickendorf, at least since 1921).

Name origin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramm...

(~Грамма́тиков)

I have no information about his chess activities after 1942 (I have some issues of the Deutsche Schachzeitung from 1943 and 1944, but I see nothing about him.)

Your link to the 1921 letter was helpful, in that it showed Grammatikoff's address as Residenzstr. 154 in Berlin-Reinickendorf.

Further searches at ancestry.com show the following:-

1920 Berlin address book gives the same address for Grammatikoff, Nikita, Technik (technician).

Hullo,

since lack of access there (or similar third party pages) I'm not really of much help in that departement - but there could still be something related to maybe let's say 'Gramatikov' prior to 1900 within the Russian Empire - to round it up when the dates are confirmed somewhere.

In the next couple of days I might have one more look at who is doing what and why around 'June 1944, Chodorov (Khodorov), Ukraine'. Intuitively I doubt my first impression of that being a cold track.

Munich made it a tick complicated bec German websphere is flooded with a present hipster establishment (they even play chess ..) of the same name.

Well there is a snipplet to add to Josef's overall chess skill though:

In 'Brandenburgische Schachzeitung, Dez 1925, Heft 12' Grammatikoff is said to have played a blind simul against 12 opponents +3 -2 =7 in Berlin, 15 Nov 1925.

And btw how to correctly cite you e.g. over at Otto Wegemund. Assuming you are working as a freelancer in that case I put your bio title in for ppl/crawlers to find your work more easy. Hope that was not wrong/unwanted Mr. McGowan.

Hae a guid day

I will try to have a colleague transcribe the marriage document referred to. I cannot decipher some of the writing, but I note that both Nikita and his father Nikolai were born in Russia ("Russland"). Also, before the father's name I think I see "Major", so if you are interested in military history....

A 1918 Berlin Address Book entry for Nikita (different address from the 1920 reference) shows "v" before his surname - "von" - so a 'noble' background somewhere.

I am OK with what you did at Wegemund.

We have (almost certainly) found his military unit:

First I have to go back a bit; already since 1941 Germany had occupied Lviv (Lemberg, chessfans know this place well otherwise time to look it up) as part of the 'Generalplan Ost' (GPO). By now the large Jewish community of the city was already deported to the KZs (concentration camps) or had been murdered nearby.

Initiated by Polish resistant forces (see Operation Tempest) at the end of June 1944 the 'Lwów [polish notation] uprising' began. Parallel Soviet troops approaching from the east as part of the 'Lvov-Sandomierz Strategic Offensive Operation'.

Aus deutscher Sicht
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lwiw-...

From a Russian perspective
https://translate.google.com/transl...

So Lviv quickly gets liberated and roughed up German units retreat through a small corridor to the south heading towards Stryj (village, ~70km) and from there (at large evading the Red Army) westward to Drohobych (city, ~30km).

But hey Germans ... why not split at Stryj and heading north-east - continuing the GPO?! There we still could win the war, no. The Soviets totally caught by surprise had not thought of such 'tactics' when 600 enemy soldiers tried to isolate the outnumbered and better equipped Red Army fighters on a bridgehead near Zalisky (village, ~35km).

'.. Die Division meldete am 22. Juli noch eine Grabenstärke von 600 Mann. Nach Bildung und Verteidigung eines Brückenkopfs bei Zalesce sowie erfolgreicher Abwehrkämpfe bei Ruda und Mlyniska gelang ein nächtliches Übersetzen ohne Verluste über den Dnjestr. ..'

from
http://www.lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de...

So it seems Josef was (at least in the last days of his life) part of the '359. Infanterie-Division', fleeing the re-occupation of Lviv, lead by a madman commander.

The story sounds too good to be true and indeed there is a snag. Not many losses are reported in this 'suicide' mission after leaving Lviv.

A fist generation German of russian descendant is fighting for Nazi Germany on Ukrainian soil against his parents' imperialist compatriots - two years after achieving his biggest chess success in Berlin at 30-42 years old.

That's some pretty cynical dark tale for a movie script.

Treat the above with caution and without guarantee - all knitted with a hot needle.

Cheers

Grammatikoff's death index card mentions
Truppenteil (unit): Armee Verpfl. .... 519
Dienstgrad (rank): Gren. (Grenadier)
Cause of death: Fliegerbombe (aerial bomb)

Spent time combinating different spellings 'Name + http://jgaliciabukovina.net/110707/... ', trying to make sense of the '...' in the given unit (Amt, Lager, Infrantrie, Grenadiere?) while looking for air strikes on the given date so far to no prevail - quickly ended up somewhere in Belarus.

With

https://vid.pr0gramm.com/2020/02/29...

leading to

https://img.pr0gramm.com/2020/07/17...

I hereby surrender (for now) ;)

There was too much death all the way, will recharge doing my usual nonsense while waiting for a flash of inspiration.

He was employed as accountant [Buchhalter] at the Berliner Gaswerke [today GASAG].

Company history (in German)
https://unternehmen.gasag.de/die-ga...