Rodin and photo historian; medievalist; Professor (Ordinarius) of art history at Munich. Schmoll's father, also named Joseph Adolf Schmoll Eisenwerth (d. 1914), was a Mannheim-based mechanical engineer and his grandfather the renowned hydraulic engineer and bridge designer, Anton Adolph Schmoll genannt Eisenwerth (1834-1918). His father was killed in action in 1914 in the département Vosges. Schmoll received his Abitur in 1934 at the Berlin Schulfarm Insel Scharfenberg, an experimental progressive school.