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Page 11
Dzino
said yes. He
moved into Hanussen's palatial villa on the Lietzenburger Strasse. He became
the clairvoyant's manager, assistant, and confidant. He made arrangements
with Hanussen's discarded mistresses and provided new ones. He became the
magician's apprentice, his faithful servant and his unscrupulous accomplice. Helldorf,
a degenerate and dissolute aristocrat, was the commander of the SA, the
brownshirt Nazi private army in Berlin. This was, of course, before the Machtergreifung, Hitler's
coming to power. Nazis and Communists were still battling in the cities of
Germany; Hindenburg hadn't yet yielded his place to the "Bohemian
corporal". Helldorf was always in financial difficulties - and he
didn't mind where he got his money from. What was far less likely: Hanussen,
the son of the Viennese synagogue-caretaker, the non-Aryan, a
member of the race the Nazis were pledged to exterminate, was quite ready to
provide the cash. Even more, he told Helldorf: "You
are close to victory, Count. My prophecies are always fulfilled. The
National Socialist Party is going to win - soon, within months. I can
see flags waving and signs rising. Ein
Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer! I
see a whole nation on the march. I see the Führer make his entry into the
Chancellor's Palace... Whatever I can do for you, Count - just let me
know. You are my guest - my friend." "Thank you." "Perhaps
you, too, can do me a service one of these days… " "Anything,"
replied Count Helldorf. And
an hour later the SA-flag was waving from the bonnet of Hanussen's
huge, gleaming, supercharged limousine. He became the first "honorary
Aryan" of the movement. As Will Berthold wrote in his posthumous
biography more than twenty years after his violent death: "The adviser
of the rich bankers, of filmstars, of politicians, the fabulously successful
attraction of the Scala became
the devil's prophet."
And at first all went well. Hanussen made subtle and
assiduous propaganda for Hitler - advising all his clients to vote for
him. When the astrologer and clairvoyant Möcke set himself up as Hanussen's
rival, trying to discover mistakes in the "great man's" horoscopes
and predictions, Hanussen simply asked Count Helldorf for another
"little favour" - and Möcke, a quiet, modest,
self-effacing man, was beaten up by SA thugs. Hanussen paid well for
such "services rendered" - a whole SA squad was equipped
with Jackboots and brown shirts at his expense.
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