History Unfolded: US Newspapers and the Holocaust

Publication Date

Sunday, November 12, 1933

Historical Event

Other Noteworthy Findings
This database includes 1,580 articles about this event

Tags

Gannett full page downloadable

Article Type

Editorial or Opinion Piece

Newspaper

The El Paso Times

Location

El Paso, Texas

Page Section and Number

36

Author/Byline

A Staff Correspondent (King Features Syndicate, Inc.)

Article Text

[Image of a man, Hanussen, upper left with a caption underneath that reads:
HITLER'S "PROPHET"
This Recent Portrait of the Murdered Eric Jan Hanussen, the Nazi'[sic] "Seer," Shows the Curiously Hypnotic Quality of the Famous Medium's Eyes. ]

BERLIN.

By a Staff Correspondent.

THE murder of Erik Jan Hanuasen, Europe's most famous hypnotist who aspired to be Adolph Hitler's personal clairvoyant, is solved at last. But not by the local police, who continue to dismiss it as a "mystery." The solution is that of watchful European journalists, who now openly declare, with abundant proof, that the "Rasputin of the Nazi government," as he proclaimed himself, met his death because he knew too much and talked out of turn.

Broadway knew Hanussen, nine years ago, as a mere circus-magician and manager of Marta Farra, the Viennese "Strong Woman." Later Park Avenue knew him as one of the cleverest foreign fakirs who ever read financiers' minds, learned society secrets and foretold futures—for a price. He "cleaned up" in America, and returned abroad.

But that was before his dizzying rise to a place of incredible power and wealth, as spy and arch-plotter, spook-counseller[sic] of the superstitious, and high priest of the weird orgies that took place in magnificent mansions or aboard costly yachts.

Riding arrogantly on the crest of the popular wave, Hanussen became a figure at which Berlin trembled. His weekly magazine, "Hanussen's Predictions," contained bold political auguries which revealed him as the "Nazi Prophet." When he forecast men's deaths, as he did on several occasions—they died.

Then Hanussen was murdered himself. His shot-riddled body was found in the Baruth woods, forty miles from Berlin. The press hardly mentioned the crime, and the Nazi police

[Image of woman, Hanussen's wife, lower left with a caption underneath that reads:
WIDOWED
Hanussen's Lovely Wife, Who Often Aided Him in His Seances and Mystic Rites—He Called Her His "Helpful Beauty." But She Was Not the Only Woman in the Arrogant Clairvoyant's Life.]

passed it by as the act of an unknown personal enemy.

But—just before his death, Hanussen had boasted in print of having prophesied the fire that destroyed the Reichstag.

And the revelations now made for the first time reveal his intimate connection with that world-famous affair—disclose, in fact, that Hanussen's own uncanny gift of hypnotism may have played the key part in setting the Reichstag fire itself!

His arrogance in bragging of it caused his undoing. There is evidence that the medium controlled the feeble mind of Van der Lubbe, who was captured at the site of the fire itself. Bearing this out is the fact that Dr. Bell, who is known to have brought Van der Lubbe to Hanussen before the conflagration, also was mysteriously murdered.

Behind these charges lies the strange story of the obscure Galician Jew who was once a sword-swallower with a travelling[sic] circus and rose to a towering position, only to topple. In his last months, married to a beautiful wife, vastly rich, surrounded by women and male flatterers, king of an inner immoral circle, Hanusssen was a name to conjure with. His past was unknown, now it is revealed for the first time.

Hanussen's real name was Hershel Steinschneider. In youth he studied for the rabbinate, but abandoned orthodoxy to immerse himself in that forbidden book of magic, the ancient Kabala. Also, he betrayed a young and innocent girl, and was compelled to flee from his village home.

He next appeared as "Steno the Great," professional sword-swallower and fire-eater, with Signor Ballachini's Magnificent and Extraordinary Circus, in Prague.

[Image of a woman in a hat, Marta Farra, and a man with his hands chained, Hanussen, middle of page with a caption underneath that reads:
"BLACK ART?" Marta Farra, the ' Viennese "Strong Woman," and Hanussen, Her Manager at the Time They Visited New York. She Declared in Court That He Hypnotized Her, Compelling Her to Bite Chains in Two and Do Other Painful Feats of Strength.]

Here his hypnotic personality, piercing black eyes, shaggy eyebrows and weird skill drew attention. The circus visited Russia and performed before tho Czar and here "Steno the Great" first overreached himself. Pretending a trance, he boldly prophesied the Czar's downfall. He was banished.

The war saw him in the Austrian army, where he was said to have advised the high command on strategic matters, with remarkable success. After the war, taking the name "Hanussen," he set up as a music-hall hypnotist and professional mind-reader and medium, in Vienna —and here he made an enemy of no less a personage than Sigmond Breitbart, the "Strong Man," remembered in America for his feat of driving nails into oaken boards with blows of the hand.

Their controversy amused Vienna, then extended to New York. Hanussen crossed the Atlantic in 1924 as manager of Marta Farra, the "strong woman." She astounded audiences by biting iron chains in two, lying on a bed of iron spikes while men pounded an anvil placed on her midriff, and lifting an elephant clear of[sic] the ground. In the end, breaking her contract, she declared in a New York courtroom that these feats were torture to her, but that she was under the spell of Hanussen, who compelled her to do them by hypnosis.

But it was also revealed that Breitbart had followed the pair to America and acted as the "strong woman's" rescuer. All returned to Vienna.

Not long afterward, Breitbart died — of blood-poisoning, it was declared. But Hanussen was suspected of causing his death, and fled to Prague.

Actresses, financiers, countesses, women of the demi-monde, now flocked to his seances and told him their secrets in his private confabs. He grew rich and his fame spread. Also his arrogance increased. It was at this time that he "prophesied" the total destruction of New York in the year 2200, obligingly making San Francisco the metropolis of the hemisphere. And, again visiting America, he reaped a harvest of dollars from New York's rich and gullible society folk. Matrons and flappers told him their secrets. There were ugly rumors that in some cases blackmail payments were the result.

When Hanussen established himself in Berlin, the city was ripe for the success which he proceeded to achieve,[sic]

Fortune and power now poured in upon Hanussen. His yacht, anchored at Potsdam, became the scene of indescribable orgies. His banquets, Roman in lavishness, grew notorious.

He specialized in table-tipping seances, using a big ring-shaped table of polished glass, with weird shadows reflected from beneath. And "Hanus-

[Image of a man, Hanussen, and a man surrounded by people, with a caption underneath that reads:
AMID HIS FLATTERERS Hanussen, at the Height of His Notoriety, Photographed Aboard His Yacht Surrounded by a Bevy of Young Girls, Anchored at Potsdam.]

sen's Bunto Wochenschau," or Weekly Forecasts, its columns filled with a mixture of prophecy and arrogant bragging, exactly hit the popular taste.

One of Hanussen's patrons was Ewers, a writer and a frequent participant in the yacht orgies. Ewers today is Director of Literature, with despotic powers.

Through Ewers, the charlatan-mystic met Hitler himself. Their relationship has caused much speculation. It is of record that Hitler's rise to supreme power was forecast, again and again, in "Hanussen's Weekly." Some believe that Hitler was encouraged by this soothsayer to believe that he was a man of destiny.

Others take the view that Hanussen brought funds and supporters through his mystical advice.

Hanussen forecast State events

[Image of a man, Hanussen, standing over another man with a caption underneath that reads:
Hanussen, Above, Is Sown Placing an Arrested Man Under Hypnosis in Order to Make Him Confess—He Often Aided His Friend Helldorf in This Way.]

[To the lower left of the image, there is an image of a circle graph with a caption that reads:
At the Left, Hitler's Horoscope, Which the Self-Styled "Prophet" Cast. ]

with marvelous accuracy. He was obviously in the inner councils of the Nazis, and wielded huge power. Professor Theodore Lessing, the German-Jewish philosopher, openly attacked Hanussen as a dangerous charlatan. Hanussen, in reply, forecast Dr. Lessing's death. And Lessing was murdered.

It was at a great celebration, dedicating Hanussen's magnificent new mansion at 16 Leitzenburgstrasse, that the affair of the Reichstag fire began, Suddenly going into a trance in the midst of his guests, the medium spoke in a hollow voice:

"I see a huge fire—a conflagration that will spread all over Germany!"

His words were remembered, but nothing appeared in the "Weekly." A few days later, the Reichstag blaze occured—and another strange incident with ti. It was testified to by Dr. Franz Hoellering, editor of the

[Image of a man in a uniform, Count Helldorf, with a caption underneath that reads:
The Head of the Berlin Police, Count Helldorf, Who Came to Hanussen for Advice.

"Berliner 12-Uhr-Blatt."

Hardly had the blaze broken out, when Hanussen phoned and asked the editor: "What is the latest news on the Reichstag fire?"

Surprised, because he himself has just heard the first rumor, Hoellering said he didn't know. "Do you know who did it?" asked Hanussen.

"There is some talk of Communists," returned the editor, "but it seems like a wild tale to me. What would they have to gain by it?"

"I tell you it was communists!" yelled Hanussen, strangely excited. "There will be important political developments. It was a communist plot! You will see!"

And in the next issue of the "Weekly," the seer bragged that he had foretold the fire, but had been kept from printing the forecast because of the political implications.

Not long afterward, his shot-riddled body was found in the woods. And the press, despite his fame, had only a brief note to the effect that "a Jewish medium," Hanussen by name, had been found murdered. The police dismissed it as a personal act by some unknown enemy.

The French newspaper, "Monde," has openly charged that the feeble-minded youth, Van der Lubbe, who said he set the fire and involved the Communists, was acting under Hanussen's hypnotic influence. In proof, the journal cites that Dr. Bell had brought Van der Lubbe to Hanussen, who had taken him in charge; and that Dr. Bell not long afterward was mysteriously murdered.

Van der Lubbe at the trial seemed in a daze. His mentality is inferior.

But the death of the Nazi Rasputin still remains, officially, an unsolved mystery.

History Unfolded Contributor

Suly W.

Location of Research

Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com)

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