As the war ended, the western two thirds of Germany was divided into zones of military occupation. The central portion, including Halle, was now administered as the Soviet occupation zone. The Ruhr region, where he had been born and lived as a young man became part of the British occupation zone. Schniewind received invitations to take up university appointments from Münster, Mainz and Berlin, but he turned them down. If his employment status at the University of Halle had been unclear before 1945, it now became a matter of public record, as he was restored to a full professorship. As a lecturer at the university and church provost in the Halle-Merseburg region he played a decisive role in a revival of public Christian awareness and the life of the church in Halle and in the Ecclesiastical Province of Saxony more widely.