Bobby Fischer - Early Years

Early Years

Bobby Fischer was born at Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago, Illinois on March 9, 1943. His birth certificate listed his father as Hans-Gerhardt Fischer, a German biophysicist (who had been Regina Fischer's husband in Moscow, prior to her arrival in America). His mother, Regina Wender Fischer, was an American citizen of Polish-Russian Jewish descent, born in Switzerland and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. She later became a teacher, a registered nurse, and then a physician. Regina had married Hans-Gerhardt in 1933 in Moscow, USSR, where Regina was studying medicine at the First Moscow Medical Institute, and the couple had lived together for a few years in Moscow. However, Hans-Gerhardt would never enter America himself, and Regina was a single parent, raising Bobby along with his elder sister, Joan. Regina lived an itinerant life, shuttling between different jobs and schools all over the country, and engaging in political activism. In 1948, the family moved to Mobile, Arizona, where Regina taught in an elementary school. The following year they moved to Brooklyn, New York, where she worked as an elementary school teacher and nurse.

Sources implying that Paul Nemenyi, a Hungarian Jewish physicist, may have been Fischer's biological father, were first made public in a 2002 investigation by Peter Nicholas and Clea Benson of The Philadelphia Inquirer. During the 1950s, the FBI investigated Regina and her circle for her alleged communist sympathies and her previous life in Moscow. The files from that FBI investigation into the family identify Nemenyi as Bobby's biological father. Government documents show that Hans-Gerhardt Fischer never entered the United States, having been refused admission by U.S. immigration officials because of alleged Communist sympathies. Regina and Nemenyi were reported to have had an affair in 1942. Additionally, Paul Nemenyi made monthly child support payments to her, and paid for Fischer's schooling until his own death in 1952. Nemenyi also lodged complaints with social workers saying he was concerned about the way that Regina was raising the child, on one occasion breaking down in tears when making the complaints. Separately, Bobby later told the Hungarian chess player Zita Rajcsanyi that Paul Nemenyi would sometimes show up at the family's Brooklyn apartment and take him on outings. After Paul Nemenyi died, in 1952, Regina Fischer wrote a letter to Paul Nemenyi's first son (Peter), asking if Paul had left money for Bobby in his will: "Bobby was sick 2 days with fever and sore throat and of course a doctor or medicine was out of the question. I don't think Paul would have wanted to leave Bobby this way and would ask you most urgently to let me know if Paul left anything for Bobby." Regina also told a social worker that the last time she had ever seen Hans-Gerhardt Fischer was 1939, four years before Bobby was born. On another occasion, she told the social worker she had traveled to Mexico to see Hans-Gerhardt in June 1942, and that Bobby was conceived during that meeting. According to Bobby Fischer's brother-in-law, Russell Targ, who was married to Bobby's half-sister, Joan, for 40 years, Regina concealed the fact that Nemenyi was Bobby's father because she wanted to avoid the stigma of an out-of-wedlock birth.

In May 1949, the six-year-old Fischer and his sister learned how to play chess using the instructions from a chess set bought at a candy store below their Brooklyn apartment. When the family vacationed at Patchogue, Long Island that summer, Bobby found a book of old chess games, and studied it intensely. On November 14, 1950, his mother sent a postcard to the Brooklyn Eagle newspaper, seeking to place an ad inquiring whether other children of Bobby's age might be interested in playing chess with him. The paper rejected her ad because no one could figure out how to classify it, but forwarded her inquiry to Hermann Helms, the "Dean of American Chess", who told her that master Max Pavey would be giving a simultaneous exhibition on January 17, 1951. Fischer played in the exhibition, losing in 15 minutes. One of the spectators was Carmine Nigro, president of the Brooklyn Chess Club, who introduced him to the club and began teaching him. Fischer attended the club regularly, intensified his interest, and gained playing strength rapidly. In the summer of 1955, the then 12-year-old Fischer joined the Manhattan Chess Club, the strongest in the country.

In June 1956, Fischer began attending the "Hawthorne Chess Club", which was actually master John W. Collins' home. Collins had earlier coached some of the country's leading players, including Robert Byrne, Donald Byrne, and William Lombardy. Fischer played thousands of blitz and offhand games with Collins and other strong players, began studying the books in Collins' large chess library, and ate almost as many dinners at Collins' home as his own. Future grandmaster Arnold Denker was also a mentor to young Bobby, often taking him to watch the New York Rangers play hockey at Madison Square Garden. Denker wrote that Bobby enjoyed those treats and never forgot them; the two became lifelong friends.

Fischer was also involved with the Log Cabin Chess Club of Orange, New Jersey, which in March 1956 took him on a tour to Cuba, where he gave a 12-board simultaneous exhibition at Havana's Capablanca Chess Club, winning 10 and drawing 2. On this tour the club played a series of matches against other clubs. Fischer played on second board, behind strong master Norman Whitaker. Whitaker and Fischer were the leading scorers for the club, each scoring 5½ points out of 7 games.

Fischer attended Erasmus Hall High School at the same time as Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond. In 1959, its student council awarded him a gold medal for his chess achievements. The same year, Fischer dropped out of high school when he turned age 16, the earliest he could legally do so. He later explained to Ralph Ginzburg, "You don't learn anything in school. It's just a waste of time."

When Fischer was 16, his mother moved out of their apartment to pursue medical training. Her friend Joan Rodker, who had met Regina when the two were "idealistic communists" living in Moscow in the 1930s, believes that Fischer resented his mother for being mostly absent as a mother, a communist activist and an admirer of the Soviet Union, and that this led to his hatred for the Soviet Union. In letters to Rodker, Fischer's mother states her desire to pursue her own "obsession" of training in medicine and writes that her son would have to live in their Brooklyn apartment without her: "It sounds terrible to leave a 16-year-old to his own devices, but he is probably happier that way." The apartment was on the edge of Bedford-Stuyvesant, a neighborhood that had one of the highest homicide and general crime rates in New York City. Despite the alienation from her son, Regina in 1960 staged a five-hour protest in front of the White House urging President Dwight Eisenhower to send an American team to that year's chess Olympiad (set for Leipzig, East Germany, behind the Iron Curtain), and to help support the team financially.