Born in Berlin, Schmidt-Jortzig was raised in Lüneburg, Lower Saxony. He studied law and received his first Staatsexamen in 1966, and the second in 1969. In 1984 he became professor of public law at the University of Kiel and also joined the Free Democratic Party.
His poetry collections include Die Trommel (The Drum; 1931), Der Aufbau (Uplift; 1936), and Glück auf, es geht gen Morgen (Hurrah, It Will Soon Be Morning; 1943). — Brothers, What Will Remain? in Das Schwarze Korps, 14 August 1935.
In 1895 he published Graphologischen Studien, followed by Praktische Menschenkenntnis auf Grund der Handschrift (Practical knowledge of human nature learned from handwriting) in 1911, and Autographen-Album bedeutender und interessanter Persönlichkeiten (Autograph album of important and interesting personalities).
Eight of the schooners were still in service in 1814, all of them based in the Norwegian ports of Bergen and Trondheim. Under the Treaty of Kiel, which provided for the separation of Norway from Denmark, those naval vessels in Norwegian ports automatically transferred to the new Norwegian navy.