The Interpreter

The Interpreter, unbeknown to many in 1942 – except to those whose life he saved – was the German official charged with advising and interpreting for the hopelessly monolingual Wehrmacht major running the German Kommandatur from the town hall of the small town of Germigny in the Cher department. This town’s significance had increased manifold as it was in the ideal position from which to control the demarcation line separating Occupied from Vichy France and running from the Atlantic to the Alpes. Nobody without a pass could cross it. It became known only after the war that the interpreter had been acting as an informer to the Allies with whom he was in radio contact at great personal danger. What is an established fact is that he, named Frank von Heugen in this book, was awarded the Croix de la Résistance posthumously by Général de Gaulle in 1945. The story goes that he left a coded diary telling posterity of his remarkable life and heroic deeds.