Helena Page Schrader (born 19 November 1953 in Ann Arbor, Michigan) is an American historian and novelist, currently serving in the U.S. Foreign Service. She is the world's leading authority on Friedrich Olbricht, a key figure in the German Resistance to Hitler.
Helena Page Schrader is the daughter of Professor Edward Page and Carla Preuthun. While Helena was still a child, her father, a professor of Industrial Engineering at the University of Michigan, accepted positions as visiting professor to the University of Waseda in Tokyo, the Instituto Technologica de Aeronautica in Sao Jose dos Campos, Brazil and at the University of Portsmouth, then Portsmouth Polytechnic. Consequently, Helena lived for two years each in Japan, Brazil and the UK while growing up.
Helena Page obtained a BA in History with Honors and High Distinction from the University of Michigan in 1975. Two years latter she earned her MA from the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce.
Schrader (then still Page) earned her PhD with Honors from the University of Hamburg with a dissertation on Friedrich Olbricht in 1991. She interviewed over 60 persons who had personally known Olbricht, including the would-be assassin Axel Freiherr von dem Bussche, Philipp Freiherr von Boeselager, and the widows of Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, Peter Graf Yorck von Wartenburg, and Adam von Trott zu Solz. Her research challenged previous assumptions about Olbricht's role in the German Resistance and on July 20, 1944. Based on her doctoral research, Schrader published the first, and to date only, full-length biography of Olbricht, General Olbricht: Ein Mann des 20. Juli, Bouvier Verlag, Bonn, 1992 (http://www.helena-schrader.com/exolbricht.html). The book was very postiviely reviewed in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the Süddeutsche Zeitung, and Neues Deutschland, causing the first, small edition to sell out within weeks. A second edition followed in 1993. In 2009, Schrader published an English language biography of General Olbricht under the title: "Codename Valkyrie: General Friedrich Olbricht and the Plot against Hitler." An Obsolete Honor.
After earning her PhD, Schrader continued to live in Berlin, Germany where she met and married Herbert Schrader in July 1992. From 1992-1994 she worked at the German Privatization Agency, the Treuhandanstalt. From 1995-2005 she worked as an investor relations manager, primarily in the financial services sector. In 2005 she was commissioned in the U.S. Foreign Service. She has since served in Norway and Nigeria.
Schrader's novel "Chasing the Wind: A Story of British and German Pilots in the Battle of Britain," won first place in the ReaderViews "Global" Category 2008 Video Teaser of "Chasing the WInd". The same year "Spartan Slave, Spartan Queen" placed second in the "Historical Fiction" genre. In 2009, "An Obsolete Honor" placed first in ReaderViews "European" Category, and was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Awards in Historical Fiction Videa Teaser of "An Obsolete Honor.". "The Blockade Breakers" was a Runner-Up in the San Francisco Book Awards in the category "History."
In addition to the biography of Friedrich Olbricht, Schrader has published the following non-fiction books:
'Sisters in Arms,' Pen & Sword Books, Barnsley UK, 2006, a study of women pilots in the U.S. and U.K. during World War II. http://www.helena-schrader.com/exsisters.html
'The Blockade Breakers,' The History Press, London, 2008, a study of the Berlin Blockade and Airlift.
'Codename Valkyrie: General Olbricht and the Plot against Hitler,' Haynes Publishing, Sparkford, 2009.
Schrader has also published the following novels:
The Olympic Charioteer, New York, 2005. http://elysiumgates.com/~helena/index; Videa Teaser of "The Olympic Charioteer."
Are They Singing in Sparta?, New York, 2006, http://www.readerviews.com/ReviewSchraderAreTheySinginginSparta.html
Chasing the Wind, New York, 2007, winner of the ReaderViews literary award for Global Fiction in 2008, http://www.readerviews.com/ReviewSchraderChasingtheWind.html
The Lady in the Spitfire, New York, 2006.
Spartan Slave, Spartan Queen, New York, 2007, http://www.readerviews.com/ReviewSchraderSpartanSlave.html
An Obsolete Honor, New York, 2008, http://www.readerviews.com/ReviewSchraderAnObsoleteHonor.html, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pU1Yw3Ue3s
Leonidas of Sparta: A Boy of the Agoge," Wheatmark, Tuscon, 2010, http://sparta-leonidas-gorgo.com
