Schmidhuber was born in
Munich, Bavaria. He studied law and economics at the
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München from 1951, gaining his license to practice as a lawyer in 1960. Schmidhuber worked from 1961 to 1966 in the Bavarian State Finance Department, then as a legal adviser from 1961 to 1978. He joined the
Christian Social Union in 1952. He was from 1960 to 1966 a member of the
Munich City Council, and from 1965 to 1969 and again from 1972 to 1978 a member of the German
Bundestag (the lower chamber of the national parliament). On 15 October 1978 he was elected to the Bavarian state parliament, and he remained there until 1987. From 1978 to 1987 he was in the private office of
Franz-Josef Strauss while the latter was regional Minister for Federal and European questions. He was also a member, at different times, of the coordination committee between the two chambers of the federal German parliament, and of the
NATO Parliamentary Assembly. Between 1987 and 1995 Schmidhuber was a member of the three
Delors Commissions in
Brussels, where he replaced
Alois Pfeiffer, also from Bavaria. Schmidhuber's portfolios in the
European Commission included Economic Affairs and Employment (from 22 September 1987 to the end of 1989); the budget (1989 to 1992); and budget, financial control and the
Cohesion Fund (from 1993 to 1994). After his retirement from the commission in 1995 Schmidhuber became a member of the Court of Directors of the
Bundesbank (the German national bank). He worked subsequently for companies specializing in economic and company law. ==Decorations==