He was born in Frankfurt am Main as a son of engineer Nils Botvid Anker (1878–1943) and artist and pianist Gudrun Nilssen (1875–1958).

[1] He finished his secondary education in 1923, attended the Norwegian Military Academy for one year before studying at the Royal Frederick University.

From 1936 he was the manager of the Norwegian National Music Collection,[1] but on 20 August 1943 he was arrested by Nazi Germans as a part of World War II.

He was a subeditor of the journal Norsk Musikkliv from 1946 to 1950, and Norwegian editor of Nordisk tidskrift för bok- och biblioteksväsen from 1954 to 1965.

[1] Anker was a board member of Norsk Samfunn for Musikkgransking and the Norwegian Folk Music Research Association, and chairman of Teaterhistorisk Selskap.