Lothar Maximilian Lorenz Schmid (1928–2013) was a notable German chess grandmaster who was also a collector and publisher of chess literature. He was born in Dresden, Saxony which was part of the Weimar Republic during his birth time. Schmid's chess career highlights include winning the German Chess Championship and earning Bronze in Chess Olympiad. He highly contributed to the game as a referee in numerous World Chess Championships.
Schmid worked for his family's publishing company, Karl-May-Verlag, specialising in works of popular German author Karl May. He also built one of the world's most extensive chess libraries.
His interest in chess began when he was ten, with his parents being his initial motivators. He studied at the Forstlehranstalt Tharandt and later pursued Law at the University of Würzburg. His notable wins in chess tournaments include his victory in Vienna (1951), Dortmund (1951), and Venice (1953).
Schmid became Germany's first grandmaster in 1959 after FIDE dropped some of its strict guidelines for the grandmaster title. He came third on his only attempt at the Interzonal in 1953. As an arbiter, he was best known for overseeing the World Chess Championship matches between Anatoli Karpov & Viktor Korchnoi and Garry Kasparov & Anatoli Karpov.
Schmid passed away in May 2013 at the age of 85. He was a collector of Karl May works and owned an impressive chess library of approximately 20,000 books and 6,000 bound volumes of chess periodicals. He also had a significant collection of chess memorabilia.
Beyond chess, he was also an avid radio operator with a special call sign DL1BU.