Mysterious Alekhine :: A genious or a war criminal?

Alekhine is one of my chess idols. I admired his chess style but mostly I admired the openings he invented. His life seems to have been very controversial though. I have read before that he might have been involved with the "bad guys" of the second world war and I always hoped that this might have been an inaccuracy. I had also read about the mysterious way he died. It is officially claimed that he choked from a piece of food or that he had a heart attack. This article in ChessBase revealed a very important claim or hypothesis. That Alexander Alekhine might have been shot by a a state group of the french government that was created to punish those who had co-operated with the enemy during the second world war. This claim was done by the doctor who apparently had been pressed by the government to write a false death certificate.

If Alekhines association with the enemy was true then it is truly dissapointing that a great chess genious could have taken part, even merely by lending his name, to war crimes. The german wikipedia article states that he might have allowed the germans faschists to use his name in hate-articles so that he can continue his chess career. The english wikipedia article states that this statement has not yet been proved despite the extented investigations. The german wikipedia article goes on to present with even more horrifying rumours I do not even wish to discuss here. Fact is that we do not know the truth. Fact is also that he had been expelled by the chess community after the end of the second world war.

If he had been a criminal then he did not seem to find solace among criminals after the war. He was depressed and lonely, sensitive in a way that a cold-blooded criminal could not have been. In his own words July 1944:

"The best part of my life has passed away between two world wars that have laid Europe waste. Both wars ruined me, with this difference: at the end of the first war I was 26 years of age, with an unbounded enthusiasm I no longer have. If, sometime, I write my memoirs – which is very possible – people will realize that chess has been a minor factor in my life. It gave me the opportunity to further an ambition and at the same time convince me of the futility of the ambition. Today, I continue to play chess because it occupies my mind and keeps me from brooding and remembering."

Regardless what the truth actually is, his chess-achievements and knowledge is what keeps me admiring him. We usually never really know the true characters of famous genious and personalities. But we can use them in the most positive and contructive way, disregarding the negative aspects, for our own personal growth.