located in the Free People's State of Württemberg of the German Reich, during the Weimar Republic era. He was the first of four children of mechanical engineer and merchant Alfred Schnaufer and his wife Martha, née Frey. The other three children were his brother Manfred, his sister Waltraut and his brother Eckart. His father owned and operated the family business, the winery Schnaufer-Schlossbergkellerei (lit. "Schnaufer's Castle Mountain Winery"), in the Lederstraße, Calw. The winery had been founded by both his father and his grandfather, Hermann Schnaufer, in 1919, shortly after World War I. Following the death of his grandfather in 1928 the winery was run by his father alone. When his father unexpectedly died in 1940, his mother ran the business until the children took over the winery after World War II. The company then expanded the business and in addition to the winery offered wine imports, sparkling wines, and a distillery for wine and liqueur. The distribution channel worked with agents and sales offices throughout Germany. Schnaufer, at the age of six, went to the local Volksschule (primary school) at Calw. After completing his fourth grade, he received two years of schooling at the Oberschule, also in Calw. At an early age he expressed his wish to join an organisation of military character and joined the Deutsches Jungvolk (junior section of Hitler Youth) in 1933. After completing his sixth grade at school he took and passed the entry examination at the Backnang National Political Institutes of Education (Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalt—Napola), a secondary boarding school founded under the recently established Nazi state. The goal of the Napola schools was to raise a new generation for the political, military and administrative leadership of the Third Reich. Schnaufer was considered a very good student, finishing top of his class every year. Aged seventeen he graduated with his Abitur (diploma) in November 1939 with distinction. At the Napola school he also received the Reich Youth Sports Badge (), the base-certificate of the German Life Saving Association (Deutsche Lebens-Rettungs-Gesellschaft), the bronze Hitler Youth-Performance Badge (HJ-Leistungsabzeichen), and completed his B-license to fly glider aircraft. In 1939 Schnaufer was one of two students posted to the Napola in Potsdam. The Flying Platoon (Fliegerzug) stationed in Potsdam centralised all the destined flyers from all the Napolas. Here he learned to fly glider aircraft, at first short hops on the DFS SG 38 Schulgleiter, and later on the two-seater