Paul Stern (4 April 1892 – 12 June 1948) was an
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
n international
bridge
A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...
player and lawyer, who fled to
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
in 1938. He was a bidding theorist and administrator who contributed to the early growth of the game. He founded the
Austrian Bridge Federation
The Austrian Bridge Federation (german: Österreichischer Bridgesportverband) is the national organization charged with regulating and promoting the card game of bridge in Austria. Its headquarters are in Vienna, and there are four regional federa ...
in 1929, and was its first president.
According to his obituary in the ''Contract Bridge Journal'':
["In Remembrance of DR. PAUL STERN", ''Contract Bridge Journal'', June 1948, p26]
Retrieved 12 Jan 2016Paul Stern - whose "Dr." was a so inseparable part of his name that he signed the most casual post-card with the prefix - was, both in his early life and in his exile, an unforgettable figure. He was tall, burly, irascible, with a voice so rough, a temperament so volatile that half the people who saw him called him a dictator; but with a charm so great, a sweetness so unexpected that even those he castigated seldom bore malice for long.
Career in bridge
Stern was a member of the Austria open teams who won the first two European championships, 1932 and 1933, under the
auspices of the International Bridge League in
Scheveningen
Scheveningen is one of the eight districts of The Hague, Netherlands, as well as a subdistrict (''wijk'') of that city. Scheveningen is a modern seaside resort with a long, sandy beach, an esplanade, a pier, and a lighthouse. The beach is po ...
, Netherlands, and in London. In 1935 he developed the
Vienna System, or Austrian System, the first highly artificial
bidding system
A bidding system in contract bridge is the set of agreements and understandings assigned to calls and sequences of calls used by a partnership, and includes a full description of the meaning of each treatment and convention. The purpose of bid ...
to achieve international success. Strong hands (equivalent to about 18 or more high-card points using the now-standard
Milton Work
Milton Cooper Work (September 15, 1864 – June 27, 1934) was an American authority on whist, bridge whist, auction and contract bridge. At least during the 19th century he was a cricket player, writer, and official.
Work, Sidney Lenz, and Oswald ...
count) were opened One Notrump; most hands with 11–17 points that lacked a five card spade, heart or diamond suit were opened One Club. Many strong players adopted the Vienna System and Stern remained the leader and an important mentor. He was the when Austria recaptured the European championships (Open category) in 1936 and 1937.
[European Team Championships]
: List ... to Date. European Bridge League
The European Bridge League is a confederation of National Bridge Federations (NBFs) that organize the card game of contract bridge in European nations. In turn the EBL organizes bridge competition at the European level. It is a member of the Europ ...
. Retrieved 2014-06-18.
Select a champion team name to see its personnel.
The
1937 IBL Championships doubled as the first world championship tournament, conducted June 1937 in
Budapest
Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...
. In the
final
Final, Finals or The Final may refer to:
*Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event
** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of cont ...
, Austria defeated
Ely Culbertson
Elie Almon Culbertson (July 22, 1891 – December 27, 1955), known as Ely Culbertson, was an American contract bridge entrepreneur and personality dominant during the 1930s. He played a major role in the popularization of the new game and was wide ...
's team from the United States by 4,740 points over 96
boards
Board or Boards may refer to:
Flat surface
* Lumber, or other rigid material, milled or sawn flat
** Plank (wood)
** Cutting board
** Sounding board, of a musical instrument
* Cardboard (paper product)
* Paperboard
* Fiberboard
** Hardboard, a t ...
, using the Vienna System against the natural Culbertson system. The result of this match caused a sensation, as did all the previous Culbertson matches. Stern's book on the championships does not mention that there were other teams in the event! The world champions were anchored by Karl Schneider and Hans Jellinek, perhaps the world's strongest pair at the time, with Karl von Blöhdorn, Dr Edward Frischauer,
Walter Herbert and Udo von Meissl. (
Bridge teams, or teams-of-four, commonly have six players with two on the "bench" at any time.) Culbertson traveled with four players, as usual —Ely and Josephine at one table,
Helen Sobel
Helen Elizabeth Sobel Smith (''née'' Martin; May 22, 1909 – September 11, 1969) was an American bridge player. She is said to have been the "greatest woman bridge player of all time" and "may well have been the most brilliant card player of ...
and Charles Vogelhofer at the other— and it was widely thought at the time that this quartet was not America's best. In addition, the Culbertsons were on the verge of divorce, which cannot be good for a bridge partnership.
Austria also won the Ladies flight of the exceptional European/World championships, and thus won the first three annual Europeans for women.
Decades later, Stern's protégé (Erika) Rixi Scharfstein, a member of those 1935 to 1937 champions, would win many European and world titles as
Rixi Markus
"Rixi" Markus MBE (27 June 1910 – 4 April 1992) was an Austrian and British international contract bridge player. She won five world titles, and was the first woman to become a World Grand Master within the World Bridge Federation. representing Great Britain.
According to a September 1948 article on Markus in the ''Contract Bridge Journal'', Stern was "perhaps the greatest coach who ever lived". A dictatorial leader, Stern insisted that his players adhered with rigidity to his system, but his over-emphatic statements and instructions were tempered by an underlying warmth of personality.
According to Rixi Markus's autobiography, ''A Vulnerable Game'', Stern would hit her on the hand if she made a mistake. When training the Austrian ladies' team, if unhappy with their play he would yell "Cows!".
When
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
annexed Austria in 1938 (
Anschluss
The (, or , ), also known as the (, en, Annexation of Austria), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich on 13 March 1938.
The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a " Greater Germany ...
), he returned his military medals, awarded in
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
and which included the Golden Merit Cross with Crown awarded for the highest level of bravery in the face of the enemy, to the
Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
authorities and included an insulting letter. As a result, he was put on a death list. He escaped to
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
; his wife, Martha, and two teenage children joined him shortly afterwards. He was a major bridge figure in London for the next decade, founding a school of bridge which taught his bidding system, running a weekly duplicate in
Hampstead
Hampstead () is an area in London, which lies northwest of Charing Cross, and extends from Watling Street, the A5 road (Roman Watling Street) to Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland. The area forms the northwest part of the Lon ...
during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
and playing rubber bridge regularly at the Hamilton Club and
Lederer's. Stern became a naturalised British citizen in March 1948, a few months before his death.
He did not tolerate fools gladly at the bridge table. Once he was confronted with having thrown a cup of coffee at his partner, and said, "It was nothing serious. There was no sugar in it".
[Campanile, Migry Zur, and others (no date)]
"Paul Lukacs"
side-bar on Stern. ''www.migry.com (c) 1997–2011''.
He suffered from
diabetes
Diabetes, also known as diabetes mellitus, is a group of metabolic disorders characterized by a high blood sugar level ( hyperglycemia) over a prolonged period of time. Symptoms often include frequent urination, increased thirst and increased ap ...
.
[
]
Publications
* ''Championship der international bridge league: Wien, 7.–12 juni 1934: 1800 Spiele (45 matches à 40 Spiele)'' (Vienna: Stern), 199 pp. – IBL Championship 1934 – Stern with the assistance of Egon Watza and Manfred Wlaschütz.
* ''Wir lizitieren ... die Ansagetechnik der Wiener Weltmeister'' (Vienna: Stern, 1937), 220 pp.
* ''Beating the Culbertsons: how the Austrians won the world contract bridge championship; with 96 diagrams of the actual hands played and comments thereon'' (London: T. Werner Laurie, 1938), 128 pp. – IBL Championship 1937
* 192 pp. – "Translated with the assistance of Margery Belsey."
* 300 pp.
* 220 pp. – Assisted by Stern.
* 141 pp.
* 243 pp. – "New and complete text book."
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stern, Paul
1892 births
1930s missing person cases
1948 deaths
20th-century Austrian lawyers
Austrian contract bridge players
Bridge players from London
British and Irish contract bridge players
Contract bridge writers
Date of birth missing
Formerly missing people
Jewish contract bridge players
Jewish emigrants from Austria to the United Kingdom after the Anschluss
Missing person cases in Austria
Naturalised citizens of the United Kingdom
Place of birth missing
Recipients of the Iron Cross (1914)