Wolf Dietrich Schneider (7 May 1925 – 11 November 2022) was a German journalist, author, and language critic. After World War II, he learned journalism on the job with Die Neue Zeitung, a newspaper published by the US military government. He later worked as a correspondent in Washington for the Süddeutsche Zeitung, then as editor-in-chief and from 1969 manager of the publishing house of Stern. He moved to the Springer Press in 1971. From 1979 to 1995, he was the first director of a school for journalists in Hamburg, shaping generations of journalists. He wrote many publications about the German language, becoming an authority. He promoted a concise style, and opposed anglicisms and the German orthography reform.

Schneider was born on 7 May 1925 in Erfurt^[2] and grew up in Berlin.^[3] Having passed his Abitur, he served with the Luftwaffe until the end of the Second World War. His post-war career began as a translator for the US Army, and in 1947 he joined the Munich-based Neue Zeitung, a newspaper run by the US military government.^[4] It was here that he received journalistic training and later worked as an editor. In the early 1950s Schneider was a correspondent for the news agency AP; in later years he was in charge of the news team and correspondent in Washington for the Süddeutsche Zeitung.^[5]

In 1966, Schneider joined Stern magazine, where he worked as editor-in-chief, and from 1969 as manager of the publishing house.^[5] German media tycoon Axel Springer hired Schneider in 1971 to design the news magazine Dialog, aimed at challenging Der Spiegel's dominant position in the German market.^[6] The project ended in failure,^[6] however, and Schneider was appointed editor-in-chief of Springer's conservative daily Die Welt, based in Hamburg.^[4] Springer dismissed Schneider after only one year.^[7]

Schneider remained at Springer as editor-in-chief without portfolio. In 1979, he was appointed the inaugural director of the newly founded Hamburger Journalistenschule, which later became known as Henri-Nannen-Schule.^[4] He was to hold this position until 1995.^[8] He taught hundreds of students,^[9] many of whom are now in prominent positions. He also became widely known during this time as the godfather of concise German prose.^[10][11]

In the 1980s and early 1990s, Schneider also presented the NDR Talk Show [de].^[4]

Schneider was married and a father of three children.^{[12][13][14][15]} He lived in Starnberg, where he died on 11 November 2022 at the age of 97.^[4][11][16]

From 1995, Schneider was a vigorous lecturer on the German language, and gave seminars for press officers and young journalists.^[17] He was a prolific writer and produced 28 best-selling nonfiction books,^[18] among them staple works on proper German style (e.g. "German for life. What school forgot to teach").^[19] His last works were "Speak German", a defence of the German language in the face of anglicisms,^[20] and Man: a Career, which tells the story of mankind's rise to mastery of the earth, and plots our uncertain future.^[21]

Schneider's ideal was a concise written style, avoiding the typically-German pitfalls of rambling sentences, separated verbs, and complex constructions. Schneider was a critic of the German orthography reform^[4] and founded with others the pressure group Aktion Lebendiges Deutsch [de] (Living German).^[22] Schneider opposed gender neutrality in the German language.^[23]

Schneider received several prizes,^[24] including the Henri Nannen Prize for his life's work,^[3][25][26] and the media prize for language culture (Medienpreis für Sprachkultur) of the Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache.^[3] He held a chair as honorary professor at the University of Salzburg.^[27]