Walter Anderson (October 10, 1885, Minsk, Belarus – August 23, 1962 in Kiel, Germany) was a German ethnologist (folklorist).
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Anderson was born from a German family in Minsk, but soon moved to Kazan (Russia), on the edge of Siberia. His father, Nikolai Anderson, was professor in Finno-Ugric languages at the University of Kazan. Anderson's younger brother was the well known mathematician Oskar Anderson, and his older brother was the astrophysicist Wilhelm Anderson. In 1962 he died after having been involved in a traffic accident.
Walter Anderson worked at the University of Tartu in Estonia between 1919 and 1939. In 1920 he was made the first holder of a chair of folklore at the University.[1] Anderson's most significant students at the time were Oskar Loorits and August Annist.
In 1936 Anderson became a corresponding member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences [2].
From 1940 to 1945 he worked at the University of Königsberg.
After the end of the second world war he received a professorship at the University of Kiel, which he remained affiliated with until his death.
Walter Anderson was one of the driving forces behind the comparative geographic-historical Method of folkloristics. He is best known for his monograph Kaiser und Abt (Folklore Fellows' Communications 42, Helsinki 1923).