Tenor Josef Schmidt was born on 4 March 1904 in Davideny, Bukovina, in present-day Romania, to poor German-Jewish land tenants. The family moved to Czernowitz, where Josef sang in the local synagoge choir. Through his uncle, Leo Engel, who later became his Manager, he received singing lessons from Frau Lerchenfeld-Hrimaly in Czernowitz, before at the age of 20 continuing his studies with Frau Jaffe and later on Professor Hermann Weißenborn in Berlin. Here, he gained a position at the Adat Yisrael synagogue. During the years 1926-1929 he fulfilled his military service and shortly after accepted a post as cantor at the synagoge in Czernowitz.

His breaktrough came at the age of 25 and in the eventful year of 1929: In Berlin he made his radio debut on 29 March singing the role of Vasco da Gama in a radio broadcast of Meyerbeer's L'Africaine, and became an overnight star and was signed to a recording contract only a couple of weeks later. The first record hit the market that very year and he was invited to star in the premiere of Ralph Benatzky's operetta "The Three Musketeers," performed at the Großen Schauspielhaus in Berlin. Yet his unusually short stature (he was only 1.54 metres tall) prevented him from getting an opera career going, he was simply too short for the stage and instead he lent his art to recitals, radio shows, records and cinema. In radio broadcasts for the radio in Berlin, Stuttgart, Wien and Hilversum, he performed in no less than 45 roles, always in German, among them Tamino in the Magic Flute and Idomeneo with Bruno Walter conducting, Arturo in I Puritani, Carlo in Verdi's I Masnadieri, Faust in Boito's Mefistofele and Arnoldo in Rossini's Guglielmo Tell.

In 1931 came his first movie: "Der Liebesexpress," followed by "Ein Lied geht um die Welt" in 1933, shot on location in Venezia in both German and English (the English version, My Song Goes Round the World, was first screened in London in 1934). It depicted the story of an aspiring opera star of short stature, too short for the stage, unlucky in love, but with his golden voice he sang on radio and on records and eventually achieved fame and popularity. The bittersweet similarity to Schmidt's own life was not received too well by Schmidt: he was acutely selfconscious about his height.

Originally the title intended was "Der Sänger des Volkes" (The People's Singer), but when the National Socialist Party (The Nazi Party) came to power in 1933 - with Hitler being appointed Chancellor of Germany - a cultural ban was placed on artists of Jewish origin. The title of the movie was simply not allowed, Schmidt being a Jew. "My Song" was premiered on 9 May 1933 and the crowd was reportedly delirious, and begged that he would peform the songs from the movie there and then. Hitler's Minister of Enlightenment and Propaganda, Josef Göbbels, was present and was applauding the young Jewish tenor enthusiastically, reportedly manifesting he would have Schmidt declared "an honorary Aryan."

Göbbels and the Nazi Party's hands-off politics on popular Jews did not convince Schmidt, or perhaps the people surrounding him, and he left Germany for Austria and Wien that very same year. Here his films were produced in rapid succession: "Wenn du jung bist " (Wien, 1934); "Ein Stern fällt vom Himmel" (Wien, 1934); "Heut' ist der schönste Tag in meinem Leben" (Wien, 1935); and finally the English version of "Ein Stern," produced in London in 1936 as "A Star fell from Heaven."

In 1934 he had sung in Palestina, in 1936 he performed in front of an audience counting 100.000 in Birkhoven, Holland, he sang in Belgium and Switzerland and in 1937-38 he toured North America, becoming known as the "Pocket Caruso" for his height. He made his American debut on radio on March 7, 1937, singing Donizetti's "Una furtiva lagrima," and displayed great vocal control by ending the cadenza of the aria in a breathtaking 12 seconds trill. He also appeared in a concert in Carnegie Hall together with other eminent singers. There were also appearances in Mexico and on Cuba before returning to Germany in 1938. He performed in Frankfurt at the Jewish Centre of Culture, seemingly unaware of the risk he was running and left the country upon the insistence from friends.

He settled in Belgium in early 1939; he was not allowed to sing in neither Germany nor Austria, but was warmly welcomed in Bruxelles where he sang the role of Rodolfo in La Boheme at the Théâtre de la Monnaie, his first and only role for the opera stage. But neither here was he safe: hostilities began with Germany's occupation of Poland in September 1939 and an intrusion in Belgium was foreshadowed. German troops occupied Belgium in 1940 and Schmidt was forced to leave. The planned escape was by boat to United States, but someone had boarded under his name and the boat left without him. With practically all ports closed because of the war, this had been his only escaperoute by sea. With the borders of Germany, Poland, Austria and Belgium closed to him, his escape to France in 1940 was nothing short of risks. He settled in the south, in Nice, as German soldiers seized Paris that same year, and even risked singing, the last time in May 1942 in Avignon, when not even France was safe to him. Yet again he was forced to run, but had nowhere to go: Switzerland refused his legal entry, which left him with no other alternative than to cross the border illegally and he managed to hide in Zürich for no more than a week before the authorities caught up with him. He was sent to Girenbad-Hinwil internment camp near Zürich, where he was to await the asylum decree together with 350 other Jews.

The conditions in the camp were horrendous and Schmidt's heart succumbed to the pressure. He suffered a heart attack in November but was quickly released from the infirmery, accused of trying to evade the labour in the camp. He suffered a 2nd heart attack, from which he died a few days later, on 16 November 1942. He was only 38.

Josef Schmidt was buried in the Friesenberg Jewish cemetary in Zürich. The headstone reads: "Ein Stern fällt - Josef Schmidt, Kammersänger 1904 - 1942."

- - -

The voice of Josef Schmidt was one of the most beautiful lyric tenor voices of its time, with a straightforward emission and easy, open high notes. Tenor and columnist Stefan Zucker describes it like this: "In general, Schmidt’s virtues are tonal beauty, accuracy of intonation, plasticity of rhythm, seamlessness of legato, ease of emission and brilliance of trills and other coloratura. His high Cs and Ds come easily, without his having to resort to "covering" the tone. Critics at the time sometimes claimed that his voice was small, the middle and bottom weak."

Although his career was short, he left a fairly large recorded legacy, singing for HMV, Ultraphon (Telefunken) and Parlaphone. Some of these recordings have been reissued by amongst others Preiser Records.