Schemm, whose parents ran a shoemaker's shop, first went to a Volksschule for five years and then as of 1905 to a teachers' college. In 1915 he got married; in 1917 a son was born. He taught school beginning in 1910, first in Wülfersreuth, then as of 1911 in Neufang and from 1920 at the Altstadtschule ("Old Town School"), which was later named the Hans-Schemm-Schule, in Bayreuth.