[Note 1] Meister was born on 14 December 1919 in Rohrmühle, present-day part of Erbendorf, at the time in the Free State of Bavaria within the Weimar Republic.

Kompanie (4th company) of Fliegerausbildungsregiment 51 (51st Flight Training Regiment) at Weimar before he was transferred to the Air War School Klotzsche in Dresden in November.

He was then posted to the Zerstörerschule (destroyer school) at Neubiberg where he received operational training on the Messerschmitt Bf 110 heavy fighter.

[3] Following the 1939 aerial Battle of the Heligoland Bight, Royal Air Force (RAF) attacks shifted to the cover of darkness, initiating the Defense of the Reich campaign.

Each sector named a Himmelbett (canopy bed) would direct the night fighter into visual range with target bombers.

[5] The effectiveness of RAF Bomber Command to accurately hit German targets had been questioned by the War Cabinet Secretary David Bensusan-Butt who published the Butt Report in August 1941.

Although the report was not widely accepted by senior RAF commanders, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, instructed Commander-in-Chief Richard Peirse that during the winter months only limited operations were to be conducted.

The objective of this assignment was to give the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen fighter protection in the breakout from Brest to Germany.

[10] Meister was credited with 39 aerial victories, 38 of which at night and over a four-engined bomber by day, claimed in 125 combat missions.