Residents feared population decline might put end to quirky version of game that has been at heart of Ströbeck life for centuries

The chess players of Ströbeck have a habit of frustrating their opponents. Throughout the ages, strangers visiting the village in the foot of the Harz mountains in central Germany have been confronted with a community that has not only been steeped in the “royal game” from an unusually early age, but has also developed its own idiosyncratic rules, including special moves, additional pieces and cryptic commands.

“That’s the accusation this place has always had to live with,” said Kathrin Baltzer, who manages the chess museum overlooking Ströbeck’s village square. “Little wonder we always win, when no one else understands how we play the game.”

For the last decade it looked as if demographic change might spell the endgame for Germany’s only Schachdorf, or “chess village”, but in 2017 its 1,060 inhabitants are newly confident that their customs will continue to unsettle opponents long into the future. Shortly before the end of last year Ströbeck’s chess traditions were officially added to Germany’s inventory of “intangible cultural heritage” after a Unesco recommendation to take steps to safeguard threatened customs and traditions.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ströbeck children in a live chess game. Photograph: Alamy

“In a region which many intelligent young people are leaving, keeping alive our chess traditions isn’t easy,” said Baltzer. “But the Unesco name will offer us some symbolic protection.”

According to a local legend celebrated in artworks across the village, chess arrived in Ströbeck thanks to a nobleman who was imprisoned in the village and taught his guards how to play in the year 1011, only a relatively short time after the game had spread from India and Persia to Europe.

A 17th-century manual by the scholar Gustavus Selenus first described a Ströbeck variant of chess, which was played on a special board with 96 squares, as opposed to the usual 64, and featured an additional cast of figures known as “advisers”, “old men” and “couriers”.

Also known as “courier chess”, the rules included a special move known as the “Ströbeck leap of joy”, whereby a pawn had to jump back to its starting position before it could be converted into a new piece.

Other traditions irked players who passed through the village. If, in spite of the home advantage, a Ströbeck player was about to walk into a trap set by the visiting opponent, members of the audience were allowed to shout out the warning “Vadder, mit Rat!” meaning “Father, be careful” in the local dialect.

Other customs demanded that anyone who wanted to marry a woman born in the village had to first challenge the mayor to a game on the black and white boards.

By the 20th century, chess had come to define Ströbeck’s identity. A glass case in the museum contains a bundle of emergency currency notes with chess motifs, issued locally at the height of hyperinflation of the early 1920s. One note, entitled “fool’s mate”, shows the US president Woodrow Wilson metaphorically checkmating Germany with the “14 points” speech that became the basis for the treaty of Versailles.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest An emergency banknote from Ströbeck, issued in 1921. Photograph: Schachmuseum Ströbeck

After the second world war, when Ströbeck found itself on the eastern side of the new border dividing Germany, the village’s chess customs received a further boost thanks to the Soviet Union’s own gaming prowess. “East Germany’s big brother was a great chess nation. That helped,” said Volker Heinholdt, the primary school’s headteacher.

Measurable success, however, remained limited. In the late 1980s the village claimed its first and only notable trophy when one of its residents won the GDR’s speed chess championship.

When the Berlin Wall fell and the old political order with it, it was Ströbeck’s chess tradition that proved the most stable civic institution. At the first free council elections after reunification, the local chess club got the largest share of the vote, beating the Christian Democratic party into second place.

Since then, declining economic fortunes and a dwindling population have threatened to put an end to Ströbeck’s heritage. The local school, where chess lessons have been mandatory from the second to fourth year since 1823, had to close down its secondary branch in 2004 because student numbers had fallen below the required minimum.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Children in Ströbeck play chess in the early 1900s. Photograph: Ullstein Bild/Getty Images

The village pub, where locals used to hone their skills over a beer, now only opens sporadically for tournaments and the annual “human chess” festival, during which Ströbeckers in medieval dress are directed across the chequered village square by two players perched on tennis-umpire chairs.

Local students traditionally played the pieces, but in recent years older people have had to step in. “The school is the important thing for Ströbeck. Without the school, our traditions will die out,” said Lisa Försterling, one of the senior members of the chess club.

The village mayor, Jens Müller, said he has not had to play a game of chess against someone keen to marry a local woman since 2011, when he won the match but let the groom off for a €70 donation to the chess club.

Being recognised as part of Germany’s cultural heritage has reinjected Ströbeck with optimism, said Müller, a member of the Social Democratic party. The village’s official status could help secure funding in the future. There are plans to seek sponsors to manufacture new “courier chess” boards and pieces, possibly for a new tournament using the old rules.

With a bit of luck, Ströbeck could one day even be upgraded to Unesco’s international heritage list, unlocking further financial support. To get there, however, it faces local competition in a similar discipline. The town of Altenburg, famous as the birthplace of the popular cardgame Skat, was also declared part of Germany’s intangible cultural heritage last year.