Willi Schmid

Who was Willi Schmid?

Wilhelm Eduard Schmid, better known as Willi Schmid, was a German music critic, and an accidental victim of the Night of the Long Knives in a case of mistaken identity.

Schmid studied music under Christian Döbereiner, and founded the Munich Viol Quartet. He was also a well-respected music critic, and wrote for the Münchener Neueste Nachrichten. He was killed by the Nazi SS during the Night of the Long Knives because he had a similar name to one of the intended targets, apparently either an SA leader named Willi Schmidt, or an associate of Otto Strasser named Ludwig Schmitt. William Shirer's account in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich mentions that Schmid was playing the cello, with his wife and children in the adjacent room, when Nazi agents knocked on the door and took him away. His body was sent to his widow in a casket four days later, with written instructions from the SS not to open it under any circumstances. Rudolf Hess visited the family a few days later to express condolences for the mistake and offer his widow a pension.