Paul Schneider served in the German Army during World War I, both on the Western Front and in Palestine, where he was in Kraftwagen Kolonne [Motorised Column] 709. On 25 March 1918 he was captured by the British during the Battle of Samakh (now Tzemakh, at the southern tip of Lake Kinneret) and held as a prisoner of war in a camp at Lod until 31 December 1918. He is recorded in the list of missing German personnel and in the International Red Cross list of prisoners of war.

After the First World War, Paul moved to Berlin. In 1931, even before the Nazis came to power, he was dismissed by his employer, a Party member, because he was Jewish. After that, he had to make a living as a self-employed businessman, despite increasing levels of persecution. On Kristallnacht in 1938 his business was trashed by a Nazi mob. During the Second World War he endured forced labour and imprisonment. His second wife, who was not Jewish, did what she could to protect him until her death in an air raid in February 1945.

After liberation, Paul was able to make contact with his nephew who was in Berlin with the occupying British forces. His son, also in the British forces, brought him to the UK where he died in 1953 aged 70.