Born into
a middle-class family on May 4, 1838, to Joseph and Dorothea Schmitt in
Hofheim, Josef attended the , completing his schooling in 1857, after which he attended the
University of Würzburg, where he was a member of the . At University, von Schmitt read law, continuing towards his PhD at the University of Heidelberg, where he won the annual prize for his dissertation, allowing him to become a
Doctor of Law.
Career By 1866, von Schmitt was serving as a professor at the University of Wurzburg, where he married Maria Isabella Lindner. From here, von Schmitt was assigned to the
District Court of Wurzburg, then onto Bamberg. Though he later served as Mayor of Bamberg, von Schmitt had a vast impact on the city itself. His efforts to relocate the
5th Royal Bavarian Division, which was formed on October 1, 1890, in
Landau, from Bamberg, as well as his expansion of municipal water and gas services largely transformed Bamberg; a city which he, at the time, represented in the Upper Franconian council. Acting as a highly regarded defence attorney,
prosecutor and judge in his home town of
Bamberg, von Schmitt was enabled to later expand his legal practice and branch into politics. Appointed to the Upper Franconian parliament, von Schmitt served as its president for many years. von Schmitt's brother, , followed a similar path, later becoming President of the Bavarian
Supreme Court. From 1870, Schmitt held the prestigious title of a
Royal Lawyer of Bamberg, working directly with the crown of Bavaria. The profession of
lawyer was at that time a state-assigned department. From 1884 to 1905 he was
Regional Court President in Bamberg. He later became a Bavarian
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