Zusammenfassung / Abstract
A Paderborn theologian as a Gestapo spy in the Vatican” – From the 21st of August to the beginning of October 1943, Joseph Mayer (1886–1967), the professor of moral theology at the Archiepiscopal Philosophical-Theological Academy in Paderborn, lived in Campo Santo Teutonico in Rome on a secret assignment from the Reich Security Main Office. Mayer provided the Security Service in Rome with information, especially about the new Italian government under Prime Minister Badoglio after the fall of Mussolini, but also from the Vatican. This hitherto unknown espionage activity sheds new light on the personality of Joseph Mayer, who has so far been the subject of research mainly because of his attitude toward “euthanasia”.