Jan Hein Donner

Who was Jan Hein Donner?

Johannes Hendrikus Donner was a Dutch chess grandmaster and writer. Donner was born in The Hague and won the Dutch Championship in 1954, 1957, and 1958. FIDE, the World Chess Federation, awarded him the GM title in 1959. He played for the Netherlands in the Chess Olympiads 11 times. He was the uncle of the former Dutch Minister of Social Affairs and Employment, Piet Hein Donner.

On August 24, 1983 Donner suffered a stroke, which he wrote happened "just in time, because when you are 56 you do not play chess as well as you did when you were 26". After surviving the stroke, he went to live in Vreugdehof, which he described as "a kind of nursing-home". He was unable to walk, but had learned to type with one finger, and wrote for NRC Handelsblad and Schaaknieuws.