Resistance to the End


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Father Rupert Mayer’s personal effects include pages of a report, which he evidently prepared for the American occupation authority in 1945after the war’s end. In it, he recounts his clashes with the Nazis from their rise in the years after World War I until the fall of the Third Reich.


Even though the report was written looking back, it constitutes authentic testimony that can be easily corroborated with other sources. Strikingly, Mayer was very skeptical of Nazi ideology from the onset and increasingly recognized its dangers.


Displaying courageousness not only at party events but also in his public and well attended sermons especially after the seizure of power in 1933, he also accepted the risk of execution. His fundamental Christian beliefs and above all his understanding of himself as a priest and religious allowed him to resolutely follow the path to potential martyrdom.


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  • © Archiv der Deutschen Provinz der Jesuiten, Akz. 298/2010, Nr. 124 h 7.6