Günter Meyer

[1] Meyer focuses mainly on the Political Geography of the Arab World, and the economic as well as urban development in the Middle East, especially in Egypt, Syria, Yemen and the UAE, but also in Germany.

Back in Erlangen, he took his state exams for higher secondary education in 1973, completed his doctorate in Geography in 1976 and qualified as a university lecturer in 1983 with his post-doctoral thesis and other writings in social geographic studies on developments in rural and nomadic areas.

Since the mid-1990s he started an intense networking activity organizing the cooperation of Institutes of Oriental studies and orientalists on a national, European and global level.

[7][better source needed] With regard to the Civil War in Syria Meyer, from the very beginning expressed himself against all endeavors to remove president Bashar al-Assad from office.

"[citation needed] Warning of the results of a power vacuum should Assad be removed, he referred to a widely known slogan in Syria: "Christians to Lebanon, the Alawites to the grave" to emphasise the imminent dangers for people protected by the existing state structure.

[citation needed] In a public debate in June 2016 Meyer expressed doubts about a smooth transition of power in case the Assad regime was dissolved.

Two military groups, Al-Nusra and IS, could not have a share in power, also the remaining militias had a salafist or radically islamistic outlook, often hostile against each other, only united temporarily by their common enmity towards Assad.