He is most famous for hosting the negotiations between members of Paul von Hindenburg's camarilla, Franz von Papen and Adolf Hitler in order to form a government after the German federal election of November 1932, which earned him the moniker "midwife of Nazism".
Schröder continued to alternate between his job as a merchant banker and a reserve officer until the outbreak of the First World War, which eventually left him disillusioned after the Armistice of Compiègne.
Dissatisfied with the instability of the Weimar Republic, he first joined the center right and pro-monarchist German People's Party led by Gustav Stresemann.
After Stresemann's death Schröder increasingly veered towards the nascent National Socialist movement before becoming an influential fundraiser and economic advisor to the NSDAP.
Schröder became chairman of the board of directors of several major companies in Germany and was president of the Rhineland Industrial Chamber in Cologne.