Erich Zepler

Who was Erich Zepler?

Erich Ernest Zepler, later known as Eric, was a German-born electronics expert and chess problem composer.

He studied physics in Berlin and Bonn before receiving his doctorate from the University of Würzburg. He went on to work for Telefunken, becoming head of the radio receiver laboratories. A Jew, he fled Germany in 1935, leaving behind all his possessions, and settled in England. There, he dropped the H in his first name, becoming Eric, and found work with the Marconi Company. In 1947 he founded the Department of Electronics at University College, Southampton, one of the first in the world. In 1949 the post of Chair of Electronics was created for him. The department is now home to the Zepler Building, named after him. He wrote several textbooks on electronics, the best known being his first The Technique of Radio Design. It is said that many of his radios were used in World War II.

Zepler was also a very significant figure in the field of chess problems. One of the leading composers of the new German school, he mainly composed three- and more-mover directmates, and also produced a small number of endgame studies. In 1957 he became an International Judge of Chess Compositions, and in 1973 an International Master of Chess Compositions. He is the eponym of Zepler doubling, after his pioneer problem published in the Hamburgischer Correspondent, 1929.