Paul Baender

Paul Baender, Spanish: Pablo Baender (November 30, 1906, Rosdzin, now part of Katowice (now Polish: Roździeń, part of Szopienice-Burowiec (German: Schoppinitz)) - 18 December 1985, Berlin) was a German-Bolivian chess master and functionary.

Born in Rosdzin, Upper Silesia, he moved to Görlitz in 1921. When Nazis came to power in 1933, he being a Jew fled to Prague, Czechoslovakia. In November 1937, he emigrated to La Paz, Bolivia. Baender played for Bolivia in the 8th Chess Olympiad at Buenos Aires 1939.

After World War II, he came back to Germany (Soviet occupation zone) in 1947. He became a communist politician (Staatssekretär in 1950-1952) in German Democratic Republic, and also the President of the GDR Chess Federation (Präsident der Sektion Schach) until 1953. He was arrested on 15 December 1952 during an anti-Semitic campaign. After Nikita Khrushchev's secret speech to the delegates to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in Moscow, he was freed in 1956.