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Klaus Bowers, 92, of Emmaus, died at home, surrounded by his loving family on Thursday, July 7, 2022. Born in Stettin, Germany, he was the third son of Franz and Elisabeth (Schneider) Bowers. His early comfortable life built around home, extended family and the family's printing works, was ended by the advent of the Nazi regime. Father faced up to the reality of the situation only after he was put into a concentration camp, from which his World War I comrades sprang him. To get the children out of Germany, the nearly nine-year-old Klaus was put in the care of his twelve -year-old brother, and the two left for England, without knowing any of the language or any person there.After a rocky start, they were put into a comfortable church home in London. There they learned English and started school again. After being bombed out in the London Blitz, they were evacuated to Gloucester, where they were finally reunited with their parents. Klaus thrived academically: At the age of 17 he got into the prestigious Balliol College in Oxford; at 20 he started physics research, and two years later he had results sufficiently impressive to be elected to a junior research fellowship at Christ Church.His career with Bell Labs began in 1956, when he moved to the United States and joined the company as a researcher in Murray Hill, NJ. From 1959 to 1990, he held a variety of management positions. In 1966, this brought him to the Lehigh Valley as a Laboratory Director. He and his wife Roswitha lived there ever since, with the exception of four years at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, where Klaus helped to bring in modern technology to safeguard the awesome weapons. In 1979, at the age of 49, he became vice president of Bell Lab's Electronics Technology Area, including over three hundred Ph.D's; and finally, ten years later, he retired. He was a Fellow of the IEEE (Frederik Philips Award 1989); member of the National Academy of Engineering; Chairman of the Semiconductor Research Corporation 1987-88; and Trustee of Cedar Crest College 1983-87.For relaxation, his favorites were hiking in the Alps and music (especially opera).In 2004 he wrote a memoir, republished in 2015, of his unusual life, 'Non Frangimur, My First Six Decades'. He is survived by Roswitha, his loving wife for 58 years; daughter, Pamela and her husband Robert Immerzeel; son, Colin and his wife Devon (Eyer); and four grandchildren.Services: At his firm request, there will be no formal funeral service. Arrangements by Bachman, Kulik & Reinsmith Funeral Home, Emmaus.
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