Although Hanussen claimed to be a Danish aristocrat, he was in fact a Moravian Jew, born as Hermann (Herschel Chaim) Steinschneider.Gordon, Mel: "Hanussen: Hitler's Jewish Clairvoyant". Feral House, 2001, p. 249. Hanussen's father, Siegfried Steinschneider (1858–1910), was an actor and caretaker of a synagogue who married Antonie Julie Kohn, a singer, in Vienna, Austria.
