Ellert, Frederick C.

Frederick C. Ellert, a professor of German at the University throughout the fifties and sixties, had deep local roots, was a leader in University Athletics, and was one of the most instrumental founders of the Massachusetts Review, where he served as the journal’s first editor from 1959-1961. Born in Holyoke, Mass. in 1906, Ellert attended the University as an undergraduate and made notable contributions to the football and basketball teams. Ellert would return to the University after his graduation in 1930 to coach the basketball team before studying in Heidelberg University and Columbia University and eventually earning his M.A. from Amherst College and Ph.D. from Stanford. Ellert was a very active translator of 19th Century German poetry and a passionate teacher, developing his own German textbook. Ellert died in 1983.

Representing his work as a translator and teacher, the Frederick C. Ellert Papers contain a number of his published and unpublished translations of Goethe, Heine, and Morgernstern, some including Ellert’s handwritten notes as well as typescript copies of his German textbooks.