 Although baptised a Lutheran, he had three Jewish grandparents, which meant that after Hitler came to power in 1933 he would not be allowed to study science - so his father sent him to London.Michaelis studied aeronautical engineering at the Imperial College of the University of London before switching to Chemistry.He went on to obtain a doctorate on "The Dehydrogenation of Alicyclic Compounds and Terpenic Ketones in the Liquid Phase", while lecturing at Sheffield University under Sir Patrick Linstead.