Schneider, Hannes

Hannes Schneider, (born 1890, Stuben am Arlberg, Austria—died April 26, 1955, North Conway, N.H., U.S.), Austrian-born ski instructor who developed what came to be called the Arlberg technique, based on the snowplow, stem, and stem Christiania turns. He helped popularize skiing in the United States.

As a teenager, Schneider observed that the then favoured way of skiing, derived from Nordic skiing, with erect posture and knees rigid, did not fit the Alpine terrain. As a young ski instructor, he developed a technique involving a crouch with the weight held forward on the skis. This technique stressed speed and made use of many turning movements which, although already known, came under his instruction to be used more in combination. In World War I he served with the Austrian army and taught skiing.

After the war Schneider appeared in a German ski film and founded his Arlberg school at St. Anton, which became internationally famous. When the Nazis seized his school after the Anschluss, he went to the United States in 1938, and a year later he founded a school at North Conway. From it came many American ski instructors.