German historian Wolfram Wette describes him as a non-ideological humanitarian whose opposition to Nazism stemmed purely from his respect for human life. According to , one of the Jews who Schmid rescued, he was a "simple sergeant" and "a socially awkward man in thought and speech" who did not read newspapers or books. Little is known about Schmid's life before World War II. After the German annexation of Austria in 1938, Schmid made a citizen's arrest of a man who broke the window of a Jewish neighbor and helped some Jewish friends escape into nearby Czechoslovakia. After the outbreak of war upon the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, he was drafted into the German army, but was not expected to serve on the front lines due to his age. According to Wette, he was a "civilian in uniform" who did not conform to military culture. At first he was stationed in Poland and Belarus.