In World War II espionage, Rudolf Roessler was the central (and mysterious) figure in the Lucy spy ring. He was a German refugee who had moved to Switzerland in the 1930s, and was the proprietor of a small publishing firm in Switzerland, Vita Novi. During the War, he managed to provide, through a Soviet espionage ring operating in Switzerland, extremely accurate and timely intelligence about German operations and intentions. It was astonishingly good material, so good as to cause some considerable doubt about it in Moscow.
Roessler was eventually arrested by the Swiss police during the War and briefly jailed. He died in the 1950s (after another bout with the police) without, so far as is publicly known, ever explaining how he had done it, or exactly who his confederates in Germany were.
