Klaus Wenda was 7 years my senior and was already well established in the international problem world when I began taking part in the PCCC congresses (from 1978): Klaus started in 1967, and ended with an 8-year period as the PCCC President from 1986 to 1994. Health problems prevented him from attending later congresses, but he continued to be active and helpful in PCCC and WFCC matters, through all the years up to now. So all in all, he supported the PCCC/WFCC for more than 55 years. His great knowledge of legal questions was very useful to us – his professional role was as a lawyer in an Austrian bank. You could tell that he was old school central European bureaucrat – always very correct, but also very friendly and helpful, flexible when needed.
We had much contact during his presidency, as I was active in some important subcommittees. Klaus did the paperwork and ran the PCCC sessions very efficiently; he was certainly one of the strongest presidents during my time in the commission. But he didn’t socialize much with “my own” younger group during leisure hours – probably due to his duties as president.
It should be mentioned that when I and a colleague from my work spent a few days in Vienna in the late 1980’s, Klaus invited us to a Heurigen (a sort of wine bar for tasting new wine). And when the new Presidium needed to have a separate session in 2010, we met in Vienna and were invited by Klaus to a great dinner in his house in the country. (Uri Avner stayed in Europe a few days longer, but then an Icelandic volcano erupted, most air traffic in Europe was halted and he could not get home for a few weeks.)
Klaus organized the PCCC meetings in Wiener Neustadt in 1980 and in Graz 1987 together with wife Doris. Of course, both events ran very smoothly.
But Klaus wasn’t just a very competent organizer, he was a great composer. I know he was very proud when he received the well-deserved Grandmaster title (IGM) in 2010. He started out as a composer of elegant logical moremovers in the so-called Viennese style, a result of coming under the influence of the famous Josef Halumbirek and his circle of composers. He soon took an interest in heterodox composition, first helpmates and selfmates and then fairies with Circe, AntiCirce, Madrasi and other fairy forms. Often, his problems have a colourful main plan which has to be prepared by one or more logical foreplans. In later decades he composed many retractor problems, mostly in AntiCirce.
He was a very respected judge in problem tourneys, and also wrote many articles in various magazines. He was also co-author of three problem books about works of Austrian composers: Problempalette (1971) and Problempalette II (1991), both with Friedrich Chlubna, and Dreiklang (2001) with Alois Johandl and Friedrich Chlubna.
A great friend, composer and organizer has left us.
The magazine feenschach organizes a memorial tourney for direct mates with Circe and/or AntiCirce and optionally fairy pieces – see the
WFCC Composing Calendar.
