Helmut Schwarz first learned to be a chemical technician and then went on to study chemistry at the TU Berlin. He completed his studies in 1971 and obtained his PhD in 1972 and his Habilitation in 1974 under Ferdinand Bohlmann. 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 is furthermore working on advancing the analytical capabilities of mass spectrometry.
He was president of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation from 2008 to 2018. From 2010 to 2015 he was president of the German Academy of Researchers Leopoldina and he is a member of acatech.