Rudolf Roessler

Independent activity 1897–1958 ○ Died

Exiled German journalist in Switzerland whose Lucy ring passed German operational plans to the Soviet Union

Born in Kaufbeuren, Bavaria, he fought in the First World War and became a cultural journalist with a focus on theatre, moving from liberal conservatism through pacifism to opposition to Nazism. Made stateless by Germany in 1934, he fled to Lucerne in Switzerland and founded Vita Nova, a small publisher of exile literature. From late summer 1942 he ran the Lucy spy ring, part of the Red Three, passing on German High Command plans for the Eastern Front; Sándor Radó forwarded nearly 70 of his significant messages to Moscow. Who his four key sources, among them Werther, were was never discovered. In the Cold War he revived his network for Czechoslovak military intelligence until the Swiss arrested him and convicted him of espionage in 1953.

Also known as: Rudolf Rössler