Schmidt was born in 1916, in Narva (then Russian Empire), two years before Estonia became an independent country.
In July 1937, he won Estonia's first-ever international tournament at Pärnu, ahead of two world title contenders, Salo Flohr and Keres, as well as Gideon Ståhlberg.
After World War II, in May 1946, he tied for 2nd-3rd with Carl Ahues, behind Wilfried Lange, at Hamburg.
In 1951, he earned a PhD in chemistry from Heidelberg University, and moved to Canada, then to the United States, settling in Philadelphia, where he took a job as a professor.
After this, he and his wife Eva moved to Bell Telephone Laboratories, Allentown, Pennsylvania, where he made contributions to electrochemistry and anodic oxidation of silicon, was expert in neutron activation analysis, and published many papers, till his retirement in 1982.
He continued playing occasional games of chess, regularly visiting Reuben Fine in New York.