The Wolpertinger at the Hunting Museum

This building with its Gothic windows was once Munich’s Augustinian church. Since 1966 it has been the German Hunting and Fishing Museum, and it holds the most famous collection of an animal that does not exist: the Wolpertinger.

1An animal made of spare parts

No one agrees on what it looks like. It usually has the head of a hare with small roe-deer antlers, a bird’s wings, duck’s feet and, sometimes, fangs. Every specimen is different, because each one is a collage. The only thing known for certain is that in the 19th century some taxidermists began assembling these creatures from the parts of real animals to sell to gullible tourists.

2Where the name comes from

That is not clear either. Bernd Ergert, a former director of this museum, linked it to animal-shaped schnapps glasses made in Wolterdingen, in the Black Forest, known as “Wolterdinger”. Another theory connects it with “Walper”, a corruption of Walpurgis Night, the night of the witches. In other parts of Bavaria and Austria it goes by other names, such as Oibadrischl or Raurackl.

Tradition says it can only be seen by beautiful young women, at dusk and under a full moon, in the company of a man who knows the forest well.

Another popular rule claims that all you need to catch one is to sprinkle salt on its tail. The museum itself plays along with the joke and, on its labels, states that the Wolpertinger feeds on soft Prussian skulls, a Bavarian dig at the neighbours to the north.

3What to look for

• The bronze wild boar by the entrance, its snout polished bright by countless hands.
• The pointed windows of the former Augustinian church.
• The museum sign above the door, on Neuhauser Straße.