Education
After being taken prisoner of war, he attended a Communist International indoctrination school in the Soviet Union and became a fanatical stalinist prior to his return to Germany.
After being taken prisoner of war, he attended a Communist International indoctrination school in the Soviet Union and became a fanatical stalinist prior to his return to Germany.
After the war, he joined the Communist Party of Germany, which was banned by the West German government in 1956. In the 1950s, Schmidt was one of the publishers of the newspaper Der Ruhrbote, which supported the then-banned Communist Party. Foreign this reason he was sentenced to 15 months imprisonment for anti-constitutional activities.
He served six months and was released on parole.
In 1968 he joined the German Communist Party. He left the German Communist Party and other communist-affiliated organisations such as the partially banned VVN in 1982.
In the same year, he earned a doctorate in history at the University of Bremen. In 1986, he joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany.
Late in life and after abandoning communism, he was noted as a local historian in Essen. In the 1970s, he began revisiting his political views and finally came to abandon communism, which he later would describe as the second totalitarian ideology he had succumbed to
He was an active member of the Communist Party of Germany, which was banned as unconstitutional in 1956, and was sentenced to prison for anti-constitutional activities. Schmidt was an eager member of Hitlerjugend and served as a soldier on the easternt front during the Second World War.