Helmut Schwarz first learned to be a chemical technician and then went on to study chemistry at the TU Berlin.
He pursued post-doctoral work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and in the UK, after which he became a professor at the TU Berlin in 1978.
Schwarz studies chemical reactions, specifically gas phase chemistry of ionic and radical organic species.
He was part of the editorial board of Mass Spectrometry Reviews from 1990 to 2003, of Helvetica Chimica Acta (1990 to 2002), and of the Journal of the American Chemical Society (2007 to 2015).
He is a member of the following societies He has received numerous awards and honors, among them In April 2023, Schwarz was one of the 22 personal guests at the ceremony in which former Chancellor Angela Merkel was decorated with the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit for special achievement by President Frank-Walter Steinmeier at Schloss Bellevue in Berlin.