Rob Schmitz
Rob Schmitz is NPR's international correspondent based in Berlin, where he covers the human stories of a vast region reckoning with its past while it tries to guide the world toward a brighter future. From his base in the heart of Europe, Schmitz has covered Germany's levelheaded management of the COVID-19 pandemic, the rise of right-wing nationalist politics in Poland and creeping Chinese government influence inside the Czech Republic.
Prior to covering Europe, Schmitz provided award-winning coverage of China for a decade, reporting on the country's economic rise and increasing global influence. His reporting on China's impact beyond its borders took him to countries such as Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Vietnam, Thailand, Australia, and New Zealand. Inside China, he's interviewed elderly revolutionaries, young rappers, and live-streaming celebrity farmers who make up the diverse tapestry of one of the most fascinating countries on the planet. He is the author of the critically acclaimed book Street of Eternal Happiness: Big City Dreams Along a Shanghai Road (Crown/Random House 2016), a profile of individuals who live, work, and dream along a single street that runs through the heart of China's largest city. The book won several awards and has been translated into half a dozen languages. In 2018, China's government banned the Chinese version of the book after its fifth printing. The following year it was selected as a finalist for the Ryszard Kapuściński Award, Poland's most prestigious literary prize.
Schmitz has won numerous awards for his reporting on China, including two national Edward R. Murrow Awards and an Education Writers Association Award. His work was also a finalist for the Investigative Reporters and Editors Award. His reporting in Japan — from the hardest-hit areas near the failing Fukushima nuclear power plant following the earthquake and tsunami — was included in the publication 100 Great Stories, celebrating the centennial of Columbia University's Journalism School. In 2012, Schmitz exposed the fabrications in Mike Daisey's account of Apple's supply chain on This American Life. His report was featured in the show's "Retraction" episode. In 2011, New York's Rubin Museum of Art screened a documentary Schmitz shot in Tibetan regions of China about one of the last living Tibetans who had memorized "Gesar of Ling," an epic poem that tells of Tibet's ancient past.
From 2010 to 2016, Schmitz was the China correspondent for American Public Media's Marketplace. He's also worked as a reporter for NPR Member stations KQED, KPCC and MPR. Prior to his radio career, Schmitz lived and worked in China — first as a teacher for the Peace Corps in the 1990s, and later as a freelance print and video journalist. He also lived in Spain for two years. He speaks Mandarin and Spanish. He has a bachelor's degree in Spanish literature from the University of Minnesota, Duluth, and a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.
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Angela Merkel is stepping down after 16 years as Germany's chancellor. Earlier this fall, NPR caught up with some people who remembered her earliest days as a politician and reflected on her legacy.
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Social Democratic Party leader Olaf Scholz, the front-runner in the polls to succeed German Chancellor Angela Merkel, is credited for transforming Hamburg when he was the city's mayor.
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Here's what it's like at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, where many of the tens of thousands of Afghans evacuated from Kabul over the past few weeks are awaiting travel to the United States.
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The largest airlift in U.S. history continues as thousands of Afghans are on their way to new homes, fleeing Afghanistan's Taliban rulers. Many evacuees are being processed at the base in Ramstein.
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As part of NPR's summer travel series, Rob Schmitz takes us to a remote corner of southern Germany, where a nun has been brewing Bavarian beer for nearly five decades.
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A massive cleanup is underway in Germany in areas badly hit by last week's storms, which caused billions of dollars worth of damage and more than 160 deaths.
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Authorities are assessing the toll of historic floods that devastated parts of western Germany that killed more than 150 people. German Chancellor Merkel described the situation as "terrifying."
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Germany and Belgium are still reeling from devastating floods that have killed more than 180 people.
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The wealthy merchant city of Dubrovnik, in present-day Croatia, had a problem. The Black Death was killing much of Europe, but Dubrovnik didn't want to lock down and lose business.
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A small farming town which lies in the path of an expanding open-pit coal mine is hoping German climate policy will eliminate the use of dirty coal before their village is consumed by the pit.
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In southeastern Europe, Montenegro needed a good road and China offered to build it. Montenegro is not sure now if it can pay for it, and it owes China the equivalent of a quarter of its economy.
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Germany is reeling under a heatwave. Temperatures are expected to rise to the high 90s — a bigger deal when a country has little to no air conditioning.