Rupert Mayer (23 January 1876 – 1 November 1945) was a German Jesuit priest and a leading figure of the Catholic resistance to Nazism in Munich.

In 1899, he was ordained a priest and served for a year as an assistant pastor in Spaichingen before joining the Society of Jesus in Feldkirch, Vorarlberg, Austria (then Austria-Hungary) in 1900.

He was initially assigned to a camp hospital; but was later made a Field Captain and sent to the fronts in France, Poland and Romania as chaplain to a division of soldiers.

[7] When there was fighting at the front, Mayer would be found himself crawling along the ground from one soldier to the next talking to them, and administering the sacraments to them.

In December 1915, Mayer was the first chaplain to win the Iron Cross for bravery in recognition of his work with the soldiers at the front.

Mayer spoke out against this persecution from the pulpit of St. Michael's in downtown Munich and because he was a powerful influence in the city, the Nazis could not tolerate such a force to oppose them.

[9] Mayer was arrested again on 3 November 1939 and sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp under the Kanzelparagraphen, a series of 19th-century laws that forbade the clergy to make political statements.

From late 1944, he was interned in Ettal Abbey,[6] mainly because the Nazis were afraid that he would die in the concentration camp, and thus become a martyr.

[8] Mayer died on his feet on 1 November 1945 of a stroke, while he was celebrating 8:00 AM Mass, on the feast of All Saints' Day in St. Michael's in Munich.

Due to the steady stream of pilgrims, his remains were moved to Munich in 1948 and were reburied in the "Lower Church" of the Bürgersaalkirche.

On 26 September 1951,[11] Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber opened the information process in the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising regarding the call to sanctity and virtues.

In 1956, Pope Pius XII, who had personally known Rupert Mayer during his time as nuncio in Munich, awarded him the title Servant of God.

[14] The parish church of Oberbozen (Soprabolzano) on South Tyrol's Ritten, inaugurated in 1991, has been dedicated to P. Rupert Mayer.