Karl Helling (10 August 1904, Luckenwalde, Brandenburg – 15 August 1937, Berlin) was a German chess master.
In 1928, he shared 1st with Kurt Richter in the Berlin City Chess Championship, and won a play-off match for the title against him (2 : 0).[1] He also won the Berlin-ch in 1932.[2] Helling represented Germany in the 4th Chess Olympiad at Prague 1931.[3]
In other tournaments, he tied for 7-10th at Chemnitz 1925, tied for 5-6th in the Berlin-ch 1927 (Berthold Koch won), took 5th at Berlin (BSG) 1928 (Aron Nimzowitsch won); tied for 2nd-3rd, behind Richter, at Wiesbaden 1928; tied for 5-6th at Leipzig 1928 (Max Blümich won), took 9th at Berlin (Kaffee König) 1928 (Efim Bogoljubow won), tied for 4-7th at Duisburg 1929 (DSB Congress, Carl Ahues won). Helling won, ahead of Salo Flohr, at Zwickau 1930; won ahead of Ehrhardt Post and Richter, at Berlin 1930; and took 2nd, behind Isaac Kashdan, at Berlin 1930 (Quadrangular).[4]
In 1931, he lost a short match to Gösta Stoltz (0.5 : 1.5) in Berlin, tied for 2nd-4th, behind Herman Steiner, in Berlin, tied for 4-6th at Swinemünde (27th DSB Congress, Bogoljubow and Ludwig Roedl won),[5] and took 4th in Berlin (BSG, Ludwig Rellstab won). Then he took 5th at Berlin 1932 (Mokadoro), took 3rd in the Berlin-ch 1933, took 10th at Bad Aachen 1933 (Bogoljubov won), and tied for 5-9th at Bad Pyrmont 1933 (1st German Chess Championship, Bogoljubow won).[6] He tied for 8-9th at Dresden 1936 (Alexander Alekhine won),[7] took 4th in the Berlin-ch 1937 (Rellstab won), and tied for 6-7th at Berlin 1937 (BSG, Fritz Sämisch won).[8]