Stefan Schneider

Stefan Schneider ( * Vienna, 24.04.1908 - † Salzburg, 08.12.1980) was an important Austrian chess composer and International Master

Stefan Schneider was initiated into chess composition by Prof. Albert Becker, who edited a chess column in a Viennese newspaper. He composed his first problem at 16 and became a multimover composer with a taste for abstract theory. Naturally he became a theoretician of the Neudeutsche Schule. Please have a look at his portrait in German on BerlinTheme.de.

Stefan Schneider was influenced by Holzhausen's "Logik und Zweckreinheit im neudeutschen Schachproblem" (logic and purity of aim) and wrote the article "Zweckökonomie" (economy of aim) that gave a solid theoretical base to the new German School.
Schneider preferred light positions with "Klarheit in Form und Inhalt" (clarity in form and content)

"Stefan Schneider was born on 24/4/1908 in Vienna. He lived in Breslau from 1932 to 1940. A #4 from the Schlesische Tageszeitung can be read in the book review.
Professor Albert Becker (who, as a member of the German team at the 1939 Chess Olympiad in Buenos Aires, remained in Argentina due to the outbreak of war) ran a large chess column in a Viennese daily newspaper. He encouraged the young Schneider and at the age of 16 he solved his first problem. ‘I composed logically right from the start, without knowing about the existence of a New German School. Also, apart from a few first two-movement pieces, it was the multiple-movement pieces that immediately attracted me. The two- and three-movement sprints don't suit me; I'm a long-distance traveller. Holzhausen's ‘Logik und Zweckreinheit’ had the greatest influence on me. It set down in marvellous language what was bubbling in my head, confused and half-baked.’ After military service and imprisonment, he came to Berlin. Here he met Herbert Grasemann in 1947. 

 The first pendulum problems emerged during this time. Together with him, he developed his thoughts on the economy of purpose in long late-night conversations. Is it any wonder that it was Stefan Schneider who later ingeniously expanded on Holzhausen's ideas in his essay ‘Zweckökonomie’ (Economics of Purpose) and thus helped the New German School to establish a firm foundation? His fundamental attitude towards theorising is remarkable. ‘I am constantly theorising by trying to categorise everything that comes to me in my mental notebook.’ Despite his pronounced sense of abstract research and theorising, Schneider never loses sight of practice. He always accounts for the practical usability and application of the knowledge he has gained. For him, all theory is nothing more than a means to the end of creating artistically perfect chess problems.

His goal is not tournament honours, he does not strive for quantity what he seeks is the beauty of chess in its purest and most mature form. We can look at every one of his works. Each is characterised by the crystalline clarity of its statement and an almost astonishing simplicity of expression. Schneider himself describes his compositional style as follows: ‘I persistently seek the simple position. As long as it is not found, it is not published. Almost anything can be achieved with about fourteen pieces, unless a particularly difficult move requires more. A full board makes me uneasy. Where I come across an unpolished presentation, I am even seriously angry. Without considering it particularly desirable, I like pomp and external effect in others.

So I enjoy with envious admiration tasks along the lines of Lepuschütz; a difficult to see main plan in the old master style, but without branching, fails because of some trifle, which is rectified in two or three moves, usually in a direct way under the control of employment. The mating pattern is economical and pure; as few white pawns as possible, which should not be inactive at the end. Of course, I won't be building anything similar myself. One reason for this is that I will never think of Klett-Berger's main plan, but above all because I consider the old master's main plans, the queen sacrifices etc., to be mere decoration, a splendid development, an external effect. 

But I would like to do without all the jewellery and work only through the idea. I am also only impressed by the kind of difficulty that comes from the depth of thought. I have no ambition to concoct devilry, and see no advantage, rather a disadvantage, in excessive difficulty. The only thing I strive for is clarity of form and content’
During the Berlin Blockade, he moved back to Austria with his family, first to Attersee and then to Salzburg. Trained as a painter and graphic artist, he spent the week working in St. Johann (Pongau) as a designer in a factory for decorative fabrics.
On 8 December 1980, John Lennon was shot dead in New York and Stefan Schneider also died in Salzburg on the same day."  

Source: berlinthema.de