90 years Halwart Schrader
02/24/2025
I bought my Opel Kapitän-51 in February 1969 as a "half-dead" but still drivable car for DM 300. Of course, I then looked everywhere for helpers, because classic car ownership wasn't like it is today. In June 1972, I started a club with like-minded people (Alt-Opel IG). And in the fall of 1972, I came across the magazine "Automobil Chronik" and an article about the Kapitän as the first model from 1939. Logically, I contacted the editor-in-chief Halwart Schrader and found a "like-minded person" in the matter: "Preserver of automotive history". Today Halwart Schrader celebrates his 90th birthday.
Automotive books and magazines are still his passion, but let's take a look back at his automotive life, which the internationally acclaimed author is now presenting in another book.
Halwart Schrader, born in Braunschweig on February 24, 1935, grew up in Berlin - with an interruption due to the war. There he studied commercial art, exhibition design and art history at the master school for arts and crafts. He began as an advertising assistant at the Hamburg-based John Jahr publishing house, became co-founder of the Friedrich W. Heye advertising agency and eventually moved into journalism, specializing in the automotive and travel sectors.
Many print media, periodicals and motor magazines made use of his refreshing style, well mixed with his standards for images and graphics. Even the avant-garde, such as "twen" and "Playboy", followed his automotive recommendations, making the "enjoyment of old cars" palatable to their readers.
From 1960 to 1974, his acquired knowledge of historic automobile brands was reflected in public relations work not only for Auto Union and BMW, but also for the British luxury brand Jaguar from 1988 to 1996.
A particular challenge was the assumption of responsibility as editor-in-chief of the recently launched magazine "Automobil Chronik" in 1973. This early scene magazine owes its qualitative development up to 1985 exclusively to Halwart Schrader.
Since then, more than 220 specialist and non-fiction books have been published alongside countless magazine articles bearing the name of Halwart Schrader as author, co-author, translator or editor. He has also written and edited many contributions to anthologies and encyclopaedias of automotive history.
Schrader was a member of the Guild of Motoring Writers and the Brooklands Society. He has received numerous honors and awards in Germany and abroad for his automotive history work; in 2020, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier awarded him the Medal of Merit for his complete works dedicated to motoring history.
Over the course of more than six decades, Halwart Schrader has placed the car at the center of his activities, but has also occasionally docked one or two alternative topics. These included designs for ship interiors, to which Schrader, a houseboat dweller and kayaker, devoted himself with maritime passion in his younger years, through to gastronomy, travel and emigration guides with books on wine and champagne culture. He co-founded the nautical magazine "boote" in 1965, the market review "InterClassic" in 1974, Transport Book Publishers and Traders International (TBI) in 1988, the Michael Sedgwick Memorial Foundation, the Automobilhistorische Gesellschaft and the Forum für Fahrzeuggeschichte, also known as F- kubik.
In the spring of 1988, the Schrader family settled in the Lüneburg Heath, where together they saved an old village school from decay and put it to a new social use as an inn and rest stop. Despite his physical handicaps, the senior still pursues his favorite pastime every morning from five o'clock: Reading books and writing books - preferably over a cup of Assam tea in unison with piano concertos by Chopin, Ravel or Rachmaninoff.
On his birthday, a book was published looking back on his life in the automobile. Schrader helps the reader to answer the question "why it's fun to fritter away your money on old cars". Over 256 pages, you are " on the road with Halwart Schrader " as a passenger in his old and youngtimers - and wherever he stops with a boiling radiator or to inspect a mysterious barn find, there are encounters worth reading with like-minded people, contemporary witnesses of a good old "combustion era", still without navigation systems, immobilizers or a catalog of fines... Instead, readers learn something about the mother-in-law's seat, engine crank or auxiliary heating when the co-driver once again has to fulfill an important task on a long-distance winter journey...
At the end of the 90th lap, this work is the 224th Schrader book since 1970 for a special reason. The author, who has clocked up a lot of kilometers, has done the math and dedicates this insight to his many friends, including those who have accompanied him throughout his life. The book is published by Olms-Presse as a hardcover volume in 210 x 240 mm format with many pictures and offers pure reading pleasure for 49 euros!
Congratulations to Halwart Schrader on his 90th birthday!
P.S. ... and the entire editorial team at Zwischengas would of course like to join in the congratulations!
