Karl Mey was a prominent German industrial physicist who directed the research and development branch of Osram AG. His presidency of the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft, starting the year Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, was crucial in that organization’s ability to assert its independence from National Socialist policies.

Education

Mey studied physics and mathematics at the Humboldt University of Berlin

Humboldt University of Berlin

The Humboldt University of Berlin is Berlin's oldest university, founded in 1810 as the University of Berlin by the liberal Prussian educational reformer and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt, whose university model has strongly influenced other European and Western universities...

 from 1897. He received his doctorate in 1902 under Emil Warburg

Emil Warburg

Emil Gabriel Warburg was a German Jewish physicist who during his career was professor of physics at the Universities of Strassburg, Freiburg and Berlin. He was president of the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft 1899-1905. He was a friend of Albert EinsteinHe was a member of the Warburg family...

; his thesis was on the cathode gradient of alkali metals.

Career

After receipt of his doctorate, Mey was employed at the Militärversuchsamt Tegel and then at the Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft

AEG

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

, where he specialized in research and development of incandescent light bulb

Incandescent light bulb

The incandescent light bulb, incandescent lamp or incandescent light globe makes light by heating a metal filament wire to a high temperature until it glows. The hot filament is protected from air by a glass bulb that is filled with inert gas or evacuated. In a halogen lamp, a chemical process...

s. He became head of the AEG light bulb factory in 1909.

During World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, from 1914 to 1917, he served in the infantry and saw action at the Western Front

Western Front (World War I)

Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by first invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The tide of the advance was dramatically turned with the Battle of the Marne...

.

After the war, Mey was again employed at AEG. After the merger of AEG, the Auer Company, and Siemens & Halske

Siemens & Halske

Siemens & Halske AG was a German electrical engineering company that later became part of Siemens AG.It was founded on 12 October 1847 as Telegraphen-Bauanstalt von Siemens & Halske by Ernst Werner von Siemens and Johann Georg Halske...

 into Osram AG

Osram

Osram, founded 1919, is part of the industry sector of Siemens AG and one of the two leading lighting manufacturers in the world. The name is derived from osmium and Wolfram , as both these elements were commonly used for lighting filaments at the time the company was founded...

 in Berlin, he supervised the whole research and development branch.

Mey was active in a number of professional organizations and held offices in them. Circa 1931, he became vice-chairman of the Deutsche Glastechnische Gesellschaft (German Technical Glass Society). From 1931 to 1945, he was president of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für technische Physik (German Society for Technical Physics). During the period 1933 to 1935, he was the president of the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft

Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft

The Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft is the world's largest organization of physicists. The DPG's worldwide membership is cited as 60,000, as of 2011...

 (Acronym: DPG; translation: German Physical Society.). With Mey being elected president of the DPG during the year that Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

 be came Chancellor of Germany, as opposed to the Nobel Laureate Johannes Stark

Johannes Stark

Johannes Stark was a German physicist, and Physics Nobel Prize laureate who was closely involved with the Deutsche Physik movement under the Nazi regime.-Early years:...

, who was a supporter of the anti-Semitic Deutsche Physik

Deutsche Physik

Deutsche Physik or Aryan Physics was a nationalist movement in the German physics community in the early 1930s against the work of Albert Einstein, labeled "Jewish Physics"...

, the DPG asserted its independence from slavishly following National Socialist policies.

In May 1945, Mey was arrested by Russian forces as a “leading military industrialist” and deported to the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

.

Selected Literature

• Karl Mey Über das Kathodengefälle der Alkalimetalle, Annalen der Physik Volume 316, Issue 5, pp. 127–145 (1903)

Selected Patents

• Patent for: Electric lamp. Patent number: 2208998. Filing date: 8 November 1937. Issue date: July 1940. Inventor: Karl Mey. Assignee: General Electric Company, Berlin-Charlottenburg, Germany.