Schneider was a journalist and language critic. He was 97 years old.
Wolf Schneider in a TV appearance in 2013.
top. Wolf Schneider died in Starnberg near Munich on Friday night. This was announced by Schneider’s family to the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”..
Schneider shaped German journalism like hardly anyone else. For 16 years he headed the Henri Nannen School in Hamburg, where he trained future journalists. In addition, Schneider has made a name for himself as a language critic. He wrote 28 non-fiction books, including the famous work “Deutsch für Profis”, which is also known to the general public as a bestseller.
He was also known on Tiktok
Just a few weeks ago, the 97-year-old became a Tiktok star. Hundreds of thousands watched videos on the social media platform in which Schneider sat in front of a wall of books and explained how to write better.
Above all, one thing was important to Schneider: comprehensibility. “The fewer syllables it has, the easier it is to read a word,” is one of his rules. Or: «If you want to produce a strong text, then throw away the adjectives». The videos are on Tiktok because the online journalism school “Reporterfabrik” uploaded them at the beginning of October.
Schneider also worked for the NZZ. From 1991 to 2013 he published numerous articles and columns in both the daily newspaper and the “Folio”.