The idea that the Nazis dabbled, or were deeply immersed, in the occult is an enduring subplot of World War II. You could probably learn more about it right now if you channel-surfed over to the History and Military channels. Chances are they’re looping a docudrama about Heinrich Himmler’s belief in the World Ice Theory—which proposed that ice was the basic substance of all cosmic processes—or Hermann Göring’s belief in a “hollow earth.”

The truth behind these sensational stories—and we’re not here to debate them—is that Berlin between the wars was a huge destination for mystics, clairvoyants, and astrologers along with the artists, musicians, and painters we associate with the city of Bertolt Brecht and Lili Marlene. The city was a psychic pressure cooker. In that context, it’s easier to understand how a political philosophy based on a mythical Volk and race paranoia could arise.

In researching The Nazi Séance: The Strange Story of the Jewish Psychic in Hitler’s Circle (Palgrave Macmillan, softcover), local journalist and University of Baltimore professor Arthur J. Magida flew to Germany to study the story of one such traveling mystic, a mysterious Danish clairvoyant named Erik Jan Hanussen. Fresh from a Czech court where he had ostensibly proved his mental abilities before a judge, Hanussen’s reputation preceded him. He entertained theater crowds in Berlin with his ability to find hidden objects and guess the meanings of dates, and built a profitable side business providing psychic counsel to anyone who would shell out the pfennigs.

Hanussen, ever the consummate businessman and social climber, allied himself, quite tragically, with a few mid-level members of the emerging Nazi Party. The twist, of course, is that Hanussen was a Jew. The cruel irony: His psychic powers could not foresee his own demise.

Born Hermann Steinschneider to itinerant showfolk, Hanussen tried his hand at vaudeville, left the Vienna ghetto to join a circus, and, according to a highly suspect autobiography, learned to become a lion trainer, discovering his psychic abilities along the way, and remade himself into the Danish nobleman Hanussen. This much is record: He made headlines in Europe and New York, owned a fleet of fancy cars, and lived at a luxe Berlin address.

And he published a newspaper, Berliner Wochenschau, that praised the rising Nazis and supported Hitler’s bid for the chancellery. Their Jew-baiting, Hanussen rationalized, was just an election ploy. The so-called clairvoyant could ferret personal details and trivialities from his customers, but he failed to grasp the bigger picture until the day stormtroopers showed up at his apartment.

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