> Like many educational institutions we get "educational certificates" that are chain certificates..
>  
> only shows: 
> 
> CONNECTED(00000003)
> 25523:error:14077410:SSL routines:SSL23_GET_SERVER_HELLO:sslv3 alert handshake failure:s23_clnt.c:562:
> 
> What do I do wrong?
> 

After reading the OpenSSL Documentation:

The certificates must be in PEM format and must be sorted starting with the subject's certificate (actual client or
server certificate), followed by intermediate CA certificates if applicable, and ending at the highest level (root) CA.

The chain.crt has to be of the following format:

HOST CERTIFICATE
INTERMEDIATE CERTIFICATE
ROOT CERTIFICATE

Then it is working w/o problems

GS