He recalled later: "For a second I didn't know what to do. Then I stopped the clock, breaking the rules. But somehow I had to get that incredible situation under control." Schmid put his arms around Spassky's shoulders and said: "Boris, you promised me you would play this game here. Are you breaking that promise?" Then the German turned to Fischer and simply said: "Bobby, please be kind." Somehow this seemed to calm both men down and they sat down to play. Fischer won that third game and never looked back, winning the match convincingly and thus breaking the Soviet Union's grip on the world chess championship.

As we now know, he failed to defend that title and disappeared completely from view. Yet 18 years later Schmid acted for a few weeks as host to Fischer in Germany — he was one of the very few humans the paranoiac genius trusted; and two years after that, Schmid refereed Fischer's 1992 private rematch against Spassky. This time, there were no arguments — other than Fischer's with the US federal authorities, who said that by playing on Serbian territory he was sanctions-busting and therefore a criminal in US law. With that, unfortunately, even Lothar Schmid could not help. 

Schmid's own chess style was not a reflection of his pacific character: or perhaps it could be said that the game allowed him an outlet for the aggression which he completely abjured in his human relations. Here is a remarkably violent encounter he won with the Black pieces against the great Efim Bogoljubow in the West German championship of 1949 (which Bogoljubow won): 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.d4 exd4 5.Nxd4 Nxe4!? (Bold in the extreme. Schmid's main idea is that after 6.Nxe4 Qe7 7.f3 d5 regains the sacrificed Knight. But Bogoljubow will regret not taking Schmid's King's Knight when he had the chance.) 6.Nxc6 Nxc3 7.Nxd8 Nxd1 8.Nxf7 Nxf2 9.Nxh8 Nxh1 10.Bd3? (After an amazing series of desperado Knight moves Boguljubow misses his chance to bottle up Schmid's steed with 10.Be3) Bc5 11.Bxh7 Nf2 12.Bf4 d6 13.Bg6+ Kf8 14.Bg3 Ng4 15.Nf7? (Again Boguljubow underestimates the potential of Schmid's rampaging Knight: 15.Kd2 immediately was best) Ne3 16.Kd2 Bf5 17. Ng5? (The final error: his best chance was the ingenious 17.Nh8! though after 17...Kg8 18.Bxf5 Nxf5 19.Ng6 Nxg3 20.hxg3 Re8 Black would be much better) Bxg6 18.Ne6+ Ke7 19.Nxc5 Nxc2 20.Bh4+ Ke8 21.Ne6 Kd7 22.Nf4 Nxa1 23.Nxg6 Re8 24.Bf2 Nc2 25.Nf4 Nb4 and after this 14th move by Schmid's wooden Red Rum, Bogoljubow resigned. One of the most extraordinary games ever played.