Marcelle Kellermann

Marcelle Georgine Kellermann (c.1919 – 6 June 2015)[1] was a French writer and teacher, and a member of the French Resistance during the Second World War.

Kellermann was born in Paris and was studying at the University of Clermont-Ferrand when she left her studies to join the Resistance in 1942. She married Ernst Kellermann (normally known as Walter) (1915–2012),[2] a German Jew whom she met in Paris.[3] Walter became an academic in the UK, where the couple made their home. They had a son and two daughters, one of whom is the actress Barbara Kellerman.

Marcelle Kellermann became a teacher of modern languages in Leeds and at Bingley College of Education in Yorkshire.[4] Her articles on the subject of language teaching included "Two experiments on language teaching in primary schools in Leeds", published by the Nuffield Foundation in 1964.[5] Her monograph in Pergamon Press's Language Teaching Methodology series, The Forgotten Third Skill: Reading a Foreign Language, was published in 1981.[6] She was said to have "pioneered the teaching of French to primary school children".[7]

Later, the couple retired to London, and she wrote a book about her wartime experiences, A Packhorse Called Rachel, published in 2007 by Grosvenor House. The Interpreter, published by CreateSpace in 2014, resulted from her research into the activities of a Nazi officer, "Frank von Heugen", who used his language skills to become an Allied informer.[8]