Henry Cord Meyer

Historian Henry Cord Meyer, 1974. Photo source: San Diego Air & Space Museum Archives Henry Cord Meyer (1912 – 2001) was an American historian specializing in modern European and Central European history. He was an expert on the politics and economics of airships in the post-World War I period (1920–1938).

Biography The only child of German immigrants Henry H. and Sophie (née Abhmann) Meyer, Henry Cord Meyer was born on 12 February 1913 in Chicago, Illinois. After his father died in 1920, Meyer and his mother moved first to Eldora, Colorado; Meyer grew up in Colorado Springs. Meyer earned his B.A. degree at the University of Colorado in 1935; he spent one year as a student at the Konsular Academy in Vienna (1935–1936) before continuing his studies in the United States, receiving his master's degree at the University of Iowa (1937). He received his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1941. His dissertation, “Mittleuropa: Concept and Reality, 1914-1917,” which was later published as a book, was written under the supervision of Hajo Holborn, the eminent historian.

Career

Meyer was commissioned as an ensign in the Navy at the start of World War II and was recruited by William Donovan to serve as a commissioned officer in the Office of Strategic Services, joining other historians performing intelligence work. While at Pomona, he received the 1956 George Louis Beer Prize (American Historical Association) for his 1955 book, Mitteleuropa in German Thought and Action, 1815-1945. He was a 1960 Guggenheim Fellow, studying German and East European History. Leaving Pomona in 1964, Meyer was a founding member of the History Department at UC Irvine (retired, 1981; emeritus to 1999). Late in his career, Meyer became an authority on the political and economic history of dirigibles,

Meyer was a prolific scholar, publishing many articles and book reviews in his career; he was the author of seven books. His research interests included German history since 1815, European history since 1848, 19th and 20th century European diplomatic history, and German-Slav relations in the 19th and 20th centuries. His later research included work on the emotional and psychological aspects of slogans (see Drang nach Osten) and images as they relate to perceptions about national identities; he also investigated the phenomena of political manipulation of technology. In his last work, Airships in International Affairs 1890-1940, Meyer collaborated with airship expert John Duggan. Considered by many an expert on the propaganda use of the airship, Meyer was not averse to sharing his knowledge and expertise with other airship scholars. At his death, Meyer was planning a book on airship political documents and working on his memoirs.

Meyer died on September 30, 2001, in Claremont, California.

In 2002, Meyer's extensive airship research papers and photograph collection were donated to the San Diego Air & Space Museum Archives.