Wikipedia:
Karl M. May (born as Karl Michael Mayer on August 9, 1893 in Vienna; died on April 19, 1943 in Madrid) was an Austrian composer of hits, revues, operettas and film music.
The seven years younger brother of the composer and film composer Hans Mayer, (stage name Hans May), studied law at the university of his hometown as well as musicology under Guido Adler. He also studied at the Vienna Music Academy under Hermann Graedener, before he was drafted at the beginning of World War I and deployed to the Eastern Front. There Mayer/May became a Russian prisoner of war in 1916 and was deported to a camp in Vladivostok in the far east of the country. Here he conducted a prisoner-of-war orchestra for three years. Back home in Vienna, Karl Mayer took his first steps as a musician. He now called himself Karl M. May and from then on worked as a bandleader, wrote popular music (Ich hab' eine kleine braune Mandoline, Maskenball im Gänsestall; Unerhört küßt die Malwine, Zum ersten Mal verliebt, Mein Liebling, mach dein Herzchen auf; Der verliebte Bimbambulla) and so-called Viennese songs (e.g. A Glaserl Wein).
In addition, Karl. M. May also composed several revues (Wien und die Wiener, Rund um die Niese, Gnädige Frau, was machen Sie heute?; Ein Maharadscha und tausend Frauen) and operettas (Aphrodite, Die blonde Gefahr) between 1926 and 1936. With the dawn of the sound film age Karl. M. May, like his brother before him, also found employment as a composer in German films, although, unlike Hans, he did not achieve great success there. For his film songs and compositions, he usually cooperated with better-known colleagues such as Willy Schmidt-Gentner, Bronislaw Kaper and Marc Roland. In 1933, after the seizure of power, both Jewish brothers May had to leave Nazi Germany again and initially returned to Vienna. There Hans and Karl M. May wrote together the film music for Richard Oswald's singing romance Wenn du jung bist, gehört dir die Welt. While Hans May was able to continue his film career with success in English exile a short time later, Karl M. May's path eventually led to Spain, where he died in the midst of the war, not yet 50 years old.
Note: Translated from a German version of Wikipedia into English.
