After attending Volksschule and graduating from the elite Wilhelmsgymnasium in Munich in 1909, he entered the Royal Bavarian Army as a Fahnenjunker (officer cadet) in the 11th Infantry Regiment.

Commissioned as a Leutnant in 1911, he participated in the First World War from 1914 to 1918 with the Royal Bavarian 23rd Infantry Regiment, during which he successively served as a commander at the platoon, company and battalion levels.

[1] After the end of the war, Schmid joined the Freikorps unit headed by fellow-Bavarian Franz Ritter von Epp and took part in the suppression of the Bavarian Soviet Republic and the Ruhr uprising between 1919 and 1920.

He was promoted to SA-Oberführer on 15 November 1931, and served as the leader of the sub-department IIa (Human Resources) until 1 July 1932 when he advanced to chief of Department II (SA Personnel).

[5] Alarmed by the growing size and power of the SA, and seeking to alleviate similar concerns on the part of the German military high command, Reich Chancellor Hitler decided to launch a purge against Röhm and his inner circle in an operation that became known as the Night of the Long Knives.

That evening, in the prison courtyard, all six were shot by a firing squad composed of members of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler under then SS-Gruppenführer Sepp Dietrich.

He was a victim of mistaken identity, believed to have been confused with either SA-Gruppenführer Wilhelm Schmid[10] or Ludwig Schmitt, an associate of Hitler opponent Otto Strasser.