Walter Serner

Walter Eduard Seligmann

1889 (Karlsbad, now Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic) – 1942 (?Riga, Latvia)

Serner faked a medical certificate for Jung that enabled him to desert, and joined in Cabaret Voltaire events in Zürich with Arp, Schad and Tzara (who however later marginalised Serner’s influence on the Dada group). The inveterate traveller Serner accompanied his closest friend Schad to Naples, Geneva and Frankfurt, went to Paris with Picabia and Tzara, and was seen by Éluard in Geneva (again). Arp said that no-one knew what became of him, though having been deported to Terezin in 1942, he was transported onward and died, perhaps in Riga. Richter described him as “an idealist in a world of pragmatists.”