Anders was born on 11 August 1892 to his Baltic-German father Albert Anders and his mother Elizabeth, born Tauchert, in the village of Krośniewice–Błonie, near Kutno which at that time was part of the Russian Empire (Partitions of Poland). He was baptized as a member of the Protestant Evangelical-Augsburg Church in Poland; but while being kept in Soviet prisons he made a promise that if he survived and regained strength in his legs (he was seriously injured) he would convert to Roman Catholicism. He did survive, and did indeed convert. In 1948 he married the actress Irena Anders.