Peter Wanderfalke

Peter Wanderfalke (1 April 1806 - ca. May 1849) was a German anthropologist and anatomist, closely associated with early race theory but also an early opponent of eugenics.
Biography
Peter Wanderfalke was born on April 1, 1806 to Josef Wanderfalke and Maria (née Jungfer). He was educated at Göttingen under the direction of Johann Friedrich Blumenbach. His 1831 thesis, Anatomie von Schweinen und Menschen (Anatomy of Pigs and People, University of Göttingen) compared the anatomy of pigs with those of humans, focusing on the similarities in skin and teeth. Always something of a comic, Wanderfalke included comments such as "If one of our good landraces were able to walk on its hind legs, it would not be dissimilar in appearance from several of the current residents of Göttingen." into this and other works.
Wanderfalke worked for Blumenbach until 1833, and then took a position as a lecturer in anatomy at Leiden University, where he remained until 1845. He returned to Göttingen following Blumenbach's death to help put his mentor's papers in order. During this time Wanderfalke began correspondence with the American anatomist Samuel George Morton, with whom he would collaborate until his disappearance in 1849. Wanderfalke's most influential work, Wissenschaft und Weltanschauung der Anthropologie (Science and Epistemology of Anthropology), may be the earliest statement of the emerging field of anthropology (which, at the time, focused almost completely on biological anthropology). In it he reviews Blumenbach's race classifications, Samuel George Morton's studies of crania and comparative anatomical works such as his own study of pigs. It is perhaps more interesting, however, as an early statement against what would be developed into eugenics several decades later by the English scholar Sir Francis Galton. Wanderfalke describes conversations with fellow anatomists at Leiden and Göttingen who suggested humans could be selectively bred like other animals to produce improved forms. Wanderfalke counters this argument elegantly: "Though we are created 'a little lower than the angels,' the human form is of such perfection that its development through selective breeding is quite impossible. We are shaped in the image of God, we cannot improve upon it." He also provides a detailed critique of selective breeding focusing on the many problems involved in pig husbandry.
Disappearance
In 1845, Wanderfalke received a copy of Samuel George Morton's new work Crania Aegyptica. Wanderfalke had included a thorough discussion of Morton's earlier Crania Americana in his Wissenschaft und Wentanschauung der Anthropologie and found Morton's new work to be both fascinating and troubling. In a review, Wanderfalke argued that Morton's comparisons of ancient Egyptians with modern Africans could not establish the Egyptians' race as Caucasian, but rather such a conclusion could only come from a comparison of ancient Egyptians and similarly ancient Caucasians. In this, Wanderfalke was anticipating the concept of human evolution by at least 25 years.
With Morton's encouragement, Wanderfalke undertook to collect ancient skulls from catacombs and tombs across northern Europe. He left Göttingen sometime in early 1847, and wrote regularly to colleagues there, and to Morton in Philadelphia, about his wanderings and adventures in collecting these skulls. He sent several crates of skulls to Göttingen which were, unfortunately, destroyed during World War II. Wanderfalke was in Denmark during the Revolutions of 1848 and may have feared for his safety as he apparently left suddenly for Sweden. His last letter (to the folklorist Jacob Grimm, a friend and former colleague at Göttingen, with whom Wanderfalke apparently shared interests in both folklore and radical politics) is from Gotland and dated May 1849, and concerns the recent political uprisings. This is Wanderfalke's last known correspondence, save one.
A letter from Wanderfalke was found among Samuel Morton's papers following Morton's death in 1851. The letter appears to be dated 1850 (though that portion of the letter is stained and difficult to read) and indicates that Wanderfalke had completed his collections and was going to prepare them for study. The letter raised interest among Wanderfalke's Göttingen colleagues, and they launched a search with the help of the Swedish government. Though Wanderfalke was never located, an interesting story about him seemed to have developed in Gotland.
The Dödenfalk Legend
By 1851 rural children throughout Gotland were aware of a frightening spectre their parents called the "dödenfalk". Parents told misbehaving children that if they continued to behave badly the "dödenfalk"--a man carrying a human skull under his arm—would come to their home to take them away and steal their skull. The origins of this legend are unknown, but the similarity between "dödenfalk" and Wanderfalke, and the legend's apparent connection with Wanderfalke's work collecting skulls, suggested that the man and the legend were somehow linked. Despite this tantalizing lead, no further information about Wanderfalke or his whereabouts was ever found.
But this was not the end. In 1936 an Ahnenerbe research team in Finland led by Yrjö von Grönhagen recorded a legend of a hawk with the face of a skull which locals called the "kuolemahaukka", a name similar in meaning to "dödenfalk" (death-hawk). The "kuolemahaukka" was thought to be the harbinger of death—whomever saw it would soon die or have a close friend or relation die. Ahnenerbe researcher (and former Ahnenerbe director) Herman Wirth had worked extensively in Sweden and with race scholars, and when he learned of this legend he immediately connected it with the "dödenfalk" and with Wanderfalke. A sensationalized version of the story of Wanderfalke appeared in the Ahnenerbe's popular publication SS-Leitheft, celebrating his research on race and blaming communists for his disappearance.
Ahnenerbe researcher August Hirt learned of Wanderfalke's collection of ancient European skulls, probably through Wirth or his successor Wolfram Sievers, and took the collection from Göttengen to Berlin, where it was destroyed along with most of Hirt's skeletal collection. Interestingly, Hirt described seeing an owl "with a face that looked to me like a skull" shortly before he committed suicide while awaiting trial for his role in the notorious Jewish skeleton collection.
The "dödenfalk" legend may be a source of similar cryptids such as America's mothman and Britain's owlman.

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