He was a journalist, but died as a soldier in the battlefield; he was born in Poland but breathed his last in China. He was the first European to put on Chinese "Eighth Route Army" uniform and to die while fighting against Japanese invaders.

　　A white marble statue of Hans Shpp e is standing today in a martyrs' cemetery in Yimeng Mountain Area of east China's Shandong Province, where he died in 1941.

　　With a pen in one hand and a notebook in the other, the three-meter tall statue of the European in Chinese soldier's uniform stared into the future.

　　COMMUNIST REPORTER FROM KARL MARX'S HOMETOWN

　　Hans Shppe was his English name. He was named Crzyb at birth in Poland and was renamed Muller in Germany, where he attended university and joined the German Communist Party. He was widely known in China as "Xi Bo", a name given by Shen Qizhen, a top health official with the New Fourth Army. The two characters in transliteration to his family name mean "hope" and "eldest son" respectively.

　　Shppe came to Shanghai in 1925 and followed what was then called National Revolution Army to Guangzhou the next year, where he edited an English periodical about China.

　　In 1932, Shppe came to Shanghai again with his wife to set up an international Marxism-Leninism study group, whose members included American writer Agnes Smedley, Dr. George Hatem and New Zealand writer Rewi Alley.

　　By then, Shppe had found worldwide fame as an anti-fascist political commentator by writing essays on China and Far East issues for newspapers and magazines in many countries, including the US "Pacific Affairs", the "Asian Magazine" and the German "World Stage".

　　In order to give the world people a vivid and objective accountof what was going on in China, Shppe went to the outlying revolutionary base of Yan'an in 1938 and was met by Mao Zedong.

　　In 1939, Shppe went to Yunling of Jingxian county in east China's Anhui Province where the New Fourth Army was based, and met Zhou Enlai, Ye Ting, Liu Shaoqi and Chenyi. He also wrote an 80,000-character book on how the Eighth Route Army was united withthe New Fourth Army in the Chinese war of resistance against Japan.

　　DIGGING DEEPER INTO THE WAR

　　Despite wide persuasion from the Chinese side, Shppe went to today's Linyi in the Yimeng Mountain Area in 1941 to dig deeper into the war. "I have to go even if it's dangerous, because no foreign reporter has ever been there," he said in response to a Chinese army officer's disapproval.

　　His presence in the outlying mountain area convinced the local soldiers and villagers they were not alone. The fact that a European Communist was fighting side by side with them made them more confident.

　　Shppe also felt at home in Linyi, as he once said he was overwhelmed by the local people's friendly looks, greetings and handshakes wherever he went. "As if I were a super star," he told Gu Mu, then secretary general of the Shandong provincial branch ofthe Chinese Communist Party.

　　He promised to the locals he would report to the world his real-life experience in Shandong, and he lived up to his words. Hewas often seen carrying a satchel containing maps, a telescope, anenamel cup and towels, traveling from one army unit to the next. He chatted with officials, army officers, ordinary soldiers as well as villages and Japanese prisoners of war, and wrote lengthy news reports about the Eighth Route Army in Shandong.

　　In one story Shppe wrote, "I, an anti-fascist pressman, am traveling freely in this 'Japan-occupied region' and I have met thousands upon thousands of armed anti-Japanese fighters. I saw everywhere in this region damaged helmets and broken armors of the'imperial army' and tattered Japanese flags. It is unimaginable tomany foreigners that I have personally experienced all these. If someone does not believe these, he will feel astonished when the Chinese people fully recover their lost land someday."A HERO'S DEATH

　　In November 1941, on the eve of the Japanese troops' "mopping up operations", the Chinese side insisted that Shppe should leave with his wife Shanghai for safety considerations. But Shppe chose to stay. "A journalist is never afraid of guns or bullets," he said.

　　On the evening of November 29, when Shppe was among some 3,000 people moving to the Daqingshan Mountain, they encountered a 5,000-strong Japanese troop. After his Chinese interpreter and several soldiers died while trying to protect him, Shppe took up agun himself and shot several Japanese to death before he himself died, He was 44 and had spent merely 78 days in Shandong.

　　DOWN IN HISTORY

　　Marshals Xu Xiangqian and Nie Rongzhen wrote inscriptions respectively for Shppe, which read "Great internationalist fighter, Comrade Shppe lives forever in the hearts of the Chinese people", and "Great internationalist fighter, close comrade-in-arms Hans Shppe of the Chinese people lives forever in our hearts."

　　"Hans Shppe, just like volunteer Canadian doctor Norman Bethunewho helped China fight the Japanese, should go down in history," said Cui Weizhi, an official in the city of Linyi. "The Chinese must never forget them for what they did for the Chinese revolution."

　　He said China should establish a dedicated research institutionto study Hans Shppe and make him widely known among the younger generation. "Such research bodies were founded in Germany in the 1980s," he added.