Lothar Schmid
Lothar Maximilian Schmid ( born May 10, 1928 in Radebeul, † May 18 2013 in Bamberg) was a German publisher and chess players.
Life
Growing up in the villa of his father in Alt -Radebeul, Lothar Schmid began after leaving school to study law in Bamberg and took over after his father's death Euchar Albrecht Schmid in 1951 along with his two brothers, Joachim Schmid and Roland Schmid Head of Karl May Verlag in Bamberg, he led after the death of his brothers and disbursing the heirs from 2003 to 2007 with his son Bernard (* 1962). In 2007 he retired from the management.
Chess career
OTB
With about 13 years, Lothar Schmid member of the chess club Radebeul. Two years later he became master of the city of Dresden and Gaumeister of Saxony. In 1943, he finished tied for second place in the kingdom of the Hitler Youth Championship in Vienna. In 1947 he won the German youth championship in the same year the championship of the Soviet occupation zone in the title playoff against Gerhard Pfeiffer. He had to share in 1949 after the tournament Grossroehrsdorf with Wolfgang Pietzsch this first place.
Schmid drew even in 1947 to Bamberg to, took part in 1948 for the first time the German championship for men and took it to fourth place. In 1950 he won the final against Walter Niephaus the first discharged " German Chess Cup ". For his victory in the tournament in Zurich in 1954 (before Nievergelt and Euwe ) him in 1959 the title of Grand Master was subsequently awarded.
As a publisher of the works of Karl May, he was able to devote as a professional chess ever. So he had to do without in 1958 for professional reasons to participate in the inter-zonal tournament in Yugoslavia.
He represented the Federal Republic of Germany between 1950 and 1974 in Dubrovnik in Nice on eleven Chess Olympiads. He came to 278 appearances in the national team. With the SC Bamberg in 1868, he was three times German team champion in OTB chess. In 1979, he won the annual BBC television show "The Master Game" the first place in front of Walter Browne, Viktor Korchnoi, Vlastimil Hort, Robert Byrne and others. In 1982, he retired at the age of 54 years back from competitive chess.
His best historical Elo rating was 2665th This he reached in October 1970.
The structure of 1 d2 -d4 c7 - c5 2 d4 d5 d6 d7 - 3 e2 -e4 - f6 Ng8 4 Nb1 - c3 g7- g6 became known as Schmid- Benoni.
Correspondence Chess
Schmid was also known as a strong correspondence player: he won the first German Championship ( 1950-1952 pitted ) and the Eduard Dyckhoff Memorial tournament, which began in 1954, with the final score of 14 out of 15 ( 13-0 = 2 ) in front of players like Alberic O'Kelly de Galway and Berthold Koch. In the second 1956 World Championship discharged until 1959, he finished shared second place. In addition to the grandmaster title by FIDE, he also carried the correspondence chess Grandmaster title of ICCF.
Referee
The general public he was known as referee of the legendary race to the World Chess Championship 1972 in Reykjavik between the Soviet Boris Spassky title holder and its US- American challenger Bobby Fischer, the so-called Match of the Century. This competition was then written up as the fight of the political systems. It is thanks to the prudent behavior by Lothar Schmid that the explosive competition could be finished properly despite all voltages; without his diplomatic skill, he would likely have failed after the second game. When it surprisingly came in Yugoslavia in 1992 to a " revenge match " between Fischer and Spassky, Schmid was again as arbitrator of the party.
Schmid was also in the World Cup battles Karpov - Korchnoi ( Baguio 1978) and Kasparov - Karpov (London / Leningrad, 1986), as well as many other top events as a referee there.
Due to his contributions as an international chess arbiter Lothar Schmid was elected chess referee of the century. The award was bestowed on him in 2005 as part of the Youth Chess Olympiad in Novi Sad, in the presence of former world champion Anatoly Karpov.
Chess library
Schmid had a collection of over 50,000 chess publications, which is probably the largest in Germany and the world's most important private collection of chess literature.