Carlo Schmid (German politician)

In 1908, the family moved to Stuttgart, where Schmid attended the prestigious humanist Karls-Gymnasium [de], where he passed his Abitur in 1914.

After the war he studied law at the University of Tübingen after which he successfully sat the first (1921) and second (1924) Legal State Exam.

In 1946, he was granted tenure as professor of public law at Tübingen, and in 1953, he relinquished the position for a chair in Political Science at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt am Main.

Apart from pursuing an academic career, Schmid translated works of Niccolò Machiavelli, Charles Baudelaire and André Malraux.

[1] He was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (Großkreuz des Verdienstordens der Bundesrepublik Deutschland).

He was also a member of the Presidium of the SPD from 1958 to 1970 and acted as a catalyst for party reform, being one of the main authors of the Godesberg Program, which jettisoned most remnants of Marxist doctrine.

From 1948 to 1949, Schmid was a member of the Parlamentarischer Rat, acting as leader of the SPD faction and chair of the Chief Committee, playing a pivotal role in the drawing up of the German Basic Law.

Simultaneously, Schmid was put in charge of the Land's educational and cultural policies until the first elections took place in 1947.

Carlo Schmid stood for election for the office of Federal President (Bundespräsident) in 1959 but was defeated by the CDU candidate Heinrich Lübke in the second round of voting.