After the collapse of the Nazi regime, Schneider returned to Germany as a member of the "Ackermann Group" and became politically active in Saxony. After the Soviet Military Administration in Germany had assumed command in Thuringia, Schneider was appointed as a Thuringian KPD district leader by Walter Ulbricht. Among other things, his activities included the removal of the Social Democrat Hermann Brill from his post as president of the Regierungsbezirk. Owing to Schneider's organizational incompetence and doctrinaire behaviour, in the autumn of 1945 he was pushed out of government and steered towards the university system in Jena. In this capacity, he became head of the "Ernst Haeckel House" in 1947 and also pushed for the reintroduction of the Lebensreform magazine "Urania".