The lawyer Walter Serner (1889-1942) came from a Bohemian-Jewish family and initially belonged to the Dadaist movement before turning to writing artificial crime novels. "The Tigress," published in 1925, is Serner's most famous work. Set in the French underworld, it tells the bizarre love story of the con artist Fec and the beautiful prostitute Bichette, known as "the Tigress." Due to its (intentional) moral indifference and explicit depiction of sexual activities, the novel caused a scandal upon its release. Serner was murdered by the Nazis in 1942 near Riga; since 1984, the Walter Serner Prize for short stories has been awarded annually in Berlin in his honor.