In later reminiscences, Felix spoke of a happy, even boisterous, childhood, though the upbringing for the boys in the family was severe, involving regular corporal punishment, though he proved to be an indulgent father.
For one thing, he invented a twin loom, but the sale of the patent was insufficient to relaunch the factory's fortunes and in 1905 he convinced his father to sell the mill, taking on the remaining debts himself.
Though the dwelling was modest, it was near the Cologne-Liège railway and there was a shed that Felix used for developing his inventions, which were many and varied, including forays into mechanics, chemical processes, and even medical appliances.
While the definitive number of patents registered under various names is uncertain, it probably reached several hundred, including new designs of a loom, and processes for manufacturing multi-colored yarns or fabrics.
The firm Rotawerke was founded in 1909 and thereafter Meyer heeded the earlier business decline of his family in that he did not draw a salary, but simply fed his own pension fund.
The united German Empire proclaimed in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War followed its destiny, especially during the reign of Kaiser William II, towards becoming a vast militaristic-industrial complex and simultaneously largely losing control of its own foreign policy.
When the summer of 1914 saw the outbreak of the First World War, this was hailed with enthusiasm by the patriotic German public, and there was no doubt that the course of events would echo those of the rapid victory of 1870.
Meyer remained a German patriot and, like other assimilated Jews of the time, refused to believe that the rise to power of the Nazi party constituted a danger.
Later that same year, in October 1939, Meyer's son-in-law Hennig emigrated legally to the Irish Free State to prepare a home there for his wife and children, who joined him a month later.
In that strange mental world of ice-cold cruelty and pseudo-bureaucratic meticulousness, Meyer succeeded in having well over a hundred Belgian and foreign Jews released one by one, arguing in detail their cases.
A man of the world, Meyer exploited the rivalry between committed Nazis and other military and civilian personnel and perhaps, too, the fear that some of his interlocutors had of facing legal retribution after the war.
The end of hostilities in Europe brought little immediate alleviation in general conditions, though Meyer fought for his humanitarian projects and at retrieving possession of his family firm, in which he eventually met with success.