Dr Josef Kranz ca 1925
Leopoldine Swarowsky (1881 – 1970, daughter of a Viennese Police Inspector and actress at the Vienna Volkstheater) gives birth out of wedlock to Hans, and relocates, as customary at the time in such circumstances, for several months to Budapest. There is no definite clarity about the father: most likely it is Dr. Josef Kranz (1862 - 1934). Dr Josef Kranz, banker and industrialist stemming from a Polish rabbi
family in Ausschwitz, becomes over the course of just a few years one of
the richest men in the Austrian Monarchy (according to a bonmot of the
day, the two most influential people in the Monarchy were Franz Josef
and Kranz Josef)...
Hans Swarowsky himself saw it a realistic alternative to be a son of
Archduke Otto Franz Joseph (1865 – 1906, father of the last Austrian
Emperor Karl I.), with whom his mother also had a liason – this
‘beautiful Archduke’ was well known for his countless amorous affairs.