Falkbeer was born in
Brünn in
Austrian Empire (today known as Brno in the
Czech Republic). He moved to
Vienna to study law, but ended up becoming a journalist. During the
European Revolutions of 1848, he fled Vienna for Germany. He played chess with German masters
Adolf Anderssen and
Jean Dufresne in
Leipzig, Berlin,
Dresden, and
Bremen. In 1853 Falkbeer was allowed to return to Vienna. Two years later, in January 1855, he started the first Austrian chess magazine,
Wiener Schachzeitung, which lasted only a few months. He went to London where he played two matches against
Henry Bird. Falkbeer lost the 1856 match (+1 −2), but won the 1856/7 match (+5 −4 =4). At the
Birmingham 1858
knockout tournament he beat
Saint-Amant in round two (+2 −1), but lost in the round four final to
Johann Löwenthal (+1 −3 =4) to finish second. Falkbeer edited a
chess column for
The Sunday Times from April 1857 to November 1859. He returned to Vienna in 1864, later writing a chess column in
Neue Illustrierte Zeitung from 1877 to 1885. He died in Vienna on December 14, 1885. ==Legacy==