Emil Heinrich Meyer was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 business executive. Meyer was a board member at the ITT Corporation

ITT Corporation

ITT Corporation is a global diversified manufacturing company based in the United States. ITT participates in global markets including water and fluids management, defense and security, and motion and flow control...

's Germany-based subsidiaries Standard Elektrik Lorenz and Mix & Genest

Mix & Genest

Mix & Genest was a 1879 branch of the ITT Corporation.Mix & Genest was founded on the 1st of October 1879 by the businessman Wilhelm Mix and the engineer Werner Genest in Berlin-Schöneberg. The company was very successful and became one of the pioneers in low voltage devices. Among the products...

 as well as AEG

AEG

Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft was a German producer of electrical equipment founded in 1883 by Emil Rathenau....

.

Meyer was drawn to right-wing politics

Right-wing politics

In politics, Right, right-wing and rightist generally refer to support for a hierarchical society justified on the basis of an appeal to natural law or tradition. To varying degrees, the Right rejects the egalitarian objectives of left-wing politics, claiming that the imposition of equality is...

 due to his relationship with the industrialist Wilhelm Keppler

Wilhelm Keppler

Wilhelm Karl Keppler was a German businessman and one of Adolf Hitler's early financial backers. Introduced to Hitler by Heinrich Himmler, Keppler helped to finance the Nazi Party....

, the two being brothers-in-law. He became a member of the Freundeskreis der Wirtschaft

Freundeskreis der Wirtschaft

The Freundeskreis der Wirtschaft, or Circle of Friends of the Economy was a group of German industrialists whose aim was to raise funds for racial research within the Third Reich...

, a group of industrialists committed to racialism

Racialism

Racialism is an emphasis on race or racial considerations. Currently, racialism entails a belief in the existence and significance of racial categories, but not necessarily that any absolute hierarchy between the races has been demonstrated by a rigorous and comprehensive scientific process...

 and close to far right

Far right

Far-right, extreme right, hard right, radical right, and ultra-right are terms used to discuss the qualitative or quantitative position a group or person occupies within right-wing politics. Far-right politics may involve anti-immigration and anti-integration stances towards groups that are...

 politics led by Keppler. The group supported the Nazi Party, which Meyer joined in 1933. He was one of three directors of the Dresdner Bank

Dresdner Bank

Dresdner Bank AG was one of Germany's largest banking corporations and was based in Frankfurt. It was acquired by competitor Commerzbank in December 2009.- 19th century :...

, the others being Karl Rasche

Karl Rasche

Karl Emil August Rasche was an SS-Obersturmbannführer and a Ph.D. in law as well as a Board member and banker, later spokesman, of the Dresdner Bank during the Third Reich...

 and Fritz Kranefuss

Fritz Kranefuss

Friedrich Carl Arthur Kranefuß , known as Fritz Kranefuß, was a German industrialist and a Wehrwirtschaftsführer in the Third Reich....

, to belong to the exclusive Freunde des Reichsführer-SS

Reichsführer-SS

was a special SS rank that existed between the years of 1925 and 1945. Reichsführer-SS was a title from 1925 to 1933 and, after 1934, the highest rank of the German Schutzstaffel .-Definition:...

circle, a development of Keppler's group. As such he had the courtesy rank of Standartenführer

Standartenführer

Standartenführer was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that was used in the so-called Nazi combat-organisations: SA, SS, NSKK and the NSFK...

 in the SS

Schutzstaffel

The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...

. In 1935 he was made an honourary professor for Genossenschaftswesen at the prestigious Handelshochschule Berlin as well as a member of the Nazi Academy for German Law.

During the latter stages of the Second World War Meyer was involved in Ostindustrie GmbH, a forced labour enterprise attached to the SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt

SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt

The SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt was responsible for managing the finances, supply systems and business projects for the Allgemeine-SS...

 set up by Oswald Pohl

Oswald Pohl

Oswald Pohl was a Nazi official and member of the SS , involved in the mass murders of Jews in concentration camps, the so-called Final Solution.-Early years:...

 in the General Government

General Government

The General Government was an area of Second Republic of Poland under Nazi German rule during World War II; designated as a separate region of the Third Reich between 1939–1945...

 area of Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

 in 1943. Meyer committed suicide

Suicide

Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

 in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

in 1945.