Birgitta Schülke is a reporter in DW's investigative team with extensive experience reporting from conflict areas. She focuses on human rights abuses and suspected war crimes in the Middle East and South Asia. Often filming and editing her own work, her innovative documentaries have garnered several awards and amassed millions of views worldwide. Her journalistic passion is on-the-ground reporting and capturing the human angle behind the stories, she tells. She is professionally committed to knowledge sharing and journalistic collaboration.
With a distinguished career spanning more than three decades, she has held various journalistic roles, including news reporter, covering on-air breaking news events; senior producer for news programs and long reportage formats; traveling correspondent in regions such as Afghanistan, Egypt, and Ukraine; documentary filmmaker; creator and head of digital format DW Stories; and media trainer. Her work has taken her to many countries, including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sudan, Egypt, Syria, Libya, Iraq, and Ukraine.
Birgitta holds a Master's degree in politics, German literature, and theater science from Berlin’s Free University (FU).
Beyond her professional pursuits, she enjoys gardening, restoring her old farm, playing the cello, cycling, and hiking alongside her family