Walter Cerf
Walter Cerf was a professor of philosophy, better known by Vermonters as a philanthropist of arts, education, historic preservation and social services.
Life and works
Academic career
Cerf was born as Hans Walter Heymann in May 14, 1907 to Hermann and Herta Heymann. His father was a successful businessman who founded the Gesellschaft für Eigentumsschutz which by the 1930s became the biggest night security agency in Europe. He spent most of his youth in Berlin, after his family moved there in 1912. Before being awarded his PhD in 1933 from the University of Bonn, he studied at University of Freiburg, University of Heidelburg and University of Austria.From 1933 to 1936, he taught at the University of Palermo in Sicily before moving to the United States due to being Jewish and facing persecution in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Although fluent in three languages, he only knew basic English when he arrived and applied for a job as a houseman for two Princeton undergraduates learning German. They encouraged him to learn English, which led him to study at Princeton, where he earned a second Ph.D. in philosophy in 1941.
He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1943 after adopting his mother’s maiden name and enlisted in the army the same year, serving in military intelligence with the 35th Infantry Division. He was awarded the Bronze Star for his service.
After the war, he had a 26-year career as a philosophy professor, teaching at Princeton, the University of Minnesota, and Brooklyn College. A scholar of Immanuel Kant, he published significant works including Existential Interpretation of Sensibility and Kant's Analytic of the Beautiful, as well as many articles. His English translations of Hegel’s works remain highly regarded.