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Erik Jan Hanussen
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Erik Jan Hanussen
Erik Jan Hanussen (born Hermann Steinschneider; 2 June 1889 – 25 March 1933), was an Austrian publicist, charlatan and clairvoyant performer. Acclaimed in his lifetime as a hypnotist, mentalist, occultist and astrologer, Hanussen was active in Weimar Republic Germany and also at the beginning of Nazi Germany. He is said to have instructed Adolf Hitler in performance and the achievement of dramatic effect, and for treating Hitler during his depression. He was assassinated in 1933, likely by members of the Sturmabteilung in an internal power struggle.
Throughout his life, Hanussen would claim to be a Danish aristocrat, he was in fact of Moravian Jewish descent, born as Hermann (Herschel Chaim) Steinschneider. Hanussen's Jewish background would be either concealed or a nominally-tolerated open secret when he began to associate himself with the Nazi movement.
Steinschneider was born to Siegfried Steinschneider and Juli Kohn in the Ottakring district of Vienna in 1889. Hanussen's parents travelled constantly through Austria and Italy with acting and musical troupes, taking Hanussen with them.
His mother died when he was ten years old, and his father remarried to a widow named Berta Pick, with whom he had two children. Three years later, Hanussen dropped out of school and ran away from home.
At the age of 20, Hanussen became a chief reporter for the newspaper Der Blitz He was later drafted into the army during World War I. During this time, he used mentalism to entertain the other troops. In 1917, he adopted the name Erik Jan Hanussen, or sometimes Erik van Hanussen, and joined a circus. He soon wrote two booklets dealing with subjects including telepathy, clairvoyance, and mind-reading, which he labelled as fraudulent practices. However, he later treated these practices as genuine and claimed to have supernatural abilities.
Hanussen performed a mind reading and hypnosis act at Scala (Berlin) (former Berliner Eispalast) that catapulted him to stardom. At his height, he enjoyed the company of Germany's military and business elite, also becoming close with members of the SA ("Brownshirts"). It is claimed he was a supporter of the Nazis despite his Jewish ancestry, which was an open secret. Hanussen converted from Judaism to Protestantism in order to join the Nazi Party. He also published anti-Semitic propaganda.
Stories abound of meetings between Hanussen and Hitler, including an encounter shortly before the election of November 1932, during which Hanussen taught Hitler his crowd control techniques of using gestures and dramatic pauses. Hanussen was also quite close to other important Nazi officials, to whom he had often lent money, including Wolf-Heinrich Graf von Helldorff, Karl Ernst and Friedrich Wilhelm Ohst.
Dr. Walter C. Langer, a psychoanalyst, prepared a psychological profile of Hitler for the United States' Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in 1943. The profile included a reference to Hanussen: "...during the early 1920s Hitler took regular lessons in speaking and in mass psychology from a man named [Hanussen] who was also a practising astrologer and fortune-teller. He was an extremely clever individual who taught Hitler a great deal concerning the importance of staging meetings to obtain the greatest dramatic effect."
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Erik Jan Hanussen
Erik Jan Hanussen (born Hermann Steinschneider; 2 June 1889 – 25 March 1933), was an Austrian publicist, charlatan and clairvoyant performer. Acclaimed in his lifetime as a hypnotist, mentalist, occultist and astrologer, Hanussen was active in Weimar Republic Germany and also at the beginning of Nazi Germany. He is said to have instructed Adolf Hitler in performance and the achievement of dramatic effect, and for treating Hitler during his depression. He was assassinated in 1933, likely by members of the Sturmabteilung in an internal power struggle.
Throughout his life, Hanussen would claim to be a Danish aristocrat, he was in fact of Moravian Jewish descent, born as Hermann (Herschel Chaim) Steinschneider. Hanussen's Jewish background would be either concealed or a nominally-tolerated open secret when he began to associate himself with the Nazi movement.
Steinschneider was born to Siegfried Steinschneider and Juli Kohn in the Ottakring district of Vienna in 1889. Hanussen's parents travelled constantly through Austria and Italy with acting and musical troupes, taking Hanussen with them.
His mother died when he was ten years old, and his father remarried to a widow named Berta Pick, with whom he had two children. Three years later, Hanussen dropped out of school and ran away from home.
At the age of 20, Hanussen became a chief reporter for the newspaper Der Blitz He was later drafted into the army during World War I. During this time, he used mentalism to entertain the other troops. In 1917, he adopted the name Erik Jan Hanussen, or sometimes Erik van Hanussen, and joined a circus. He soon wrote two booklets dealing with subjects including telepathy, clairvoyance, and mind-reading, which he labelled as fraudulent practices. However, he later treated these practices as genuine and claimed to have supernatural abilities.
Hanussen performed a mind reading and hypnosis act at Scala (Berlin) (former Berliner Eispalast) that catapulted him to stardom. At his height, he enjoyed the company of Germany's military and business elite, also becoming close with members of the SA ("Brownshirts"). It is claimed he was a supporter of the Nazis despite his Jewish ancestry, which was an open secret. Hanussen converted from Judaism to Protestantism in order to join the Nazi Party. He also published anti-Semitic propaganda.
Stories abound of meetings between Hanussen and Hitler, including an encounter shortly before the election of November 1932, during which Hanussen taught Hitler his crowd control techniques of using gestures and dramatic pauses. Hanussen was also quite close to other important Nazi officials, to whom he had often lent money, including Wolf-Heinrich Graf von Helldorff, Karl Ernst and Friedrich Wilhelm Ohst.
Dr. Walter C. Langer, a psychoanalyst, prepared a psychological profile of Hitler for the United States' Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in 1943. The profile included a reference to Hanussen: "...during the early 1920s Hitler took regular lessons in speaking and in mass psychology from a man named [Hanussen] who was also a practising astrologer and fortune-teller. He was an extremely clever individual who taught Hitler a great deal concerning the importance of staging meetings to obtain the greatest dramatic effect."
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