Carlo Schmid (German politician)

Carlo Schmid (3 December 1896 – 11 December 1979) was a German academic and politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).

Schmid is one of the most important authors of both the German Basic Law and the Godesberg Program of the SPD. He was intimately involved in German-French relations and served as "Federal Minister for the Affairs of the Federal Council and States" from 1966 to 1969.

Schmid was born in Perpignan, France and lived there for five years before his family moved to Germany. In 1908, the family moved to Stuttgart, where Schmid attended the prestigious humanist Karls-Gymnasium, where he passed his Abitur in 1914. From 1914 to 1918, Schmid fought in the German army. 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 1923, he completed a doctoral dissertation under the supervision of the renowned legal scholar Hugo Sinzheimer.

After working as a lawyer for a short time, he was made a justice of Württemberg state in 1927. From 1927 to 1928, he worked as a research assistant for the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut for foreign public law. At the Institute, he was a colleague of Hermann Heller. In 1929, Schmid completed his Habilitation with a thesis on the jurisprudence of the Permanent Court of International Justice. From 1930 to 1940 he worked as a Privatdozent at the University of Tübingen. He was refused tenure by the Nazis on political grounds.

In 1940 he was made legal counsel of the 'Oberfeldkommandantur' of the German occupation forces in Lille (France).

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