After studying law, he joined the higher judicial service of the State of Baden-Württemberg as a Gerichtsassessor at the Landgericht Stuttgart in 1979.
Since 1986, he held the position of public prosecutor for the investigation of murders in connection with Nazi crimes of violence for the entire district of Oberlandesgericht Stuttgart.
He was investigating against Oberscharführer Josef Schwammberger, who was arrested in 1987 and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1992,[1] and also against Friedrich Engel, labelled as the "butcher of Genoa" by the international media.
On 6 April 2013 Schrimm as head of the Central Office announced that his authority was going to start preliminary investigations against 50 former wardens of Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp for complicity in murder.
[4] When Kurt Schrimm retired, Jens Rommel became his successor as head of the Central Office in October 2015.