DR. SIEMERS: Mr. President, yesterday it was asserted...
THE PRESIDENT: Don’t argue! Go on with any other questions.
DR. SIEMERS: Do you recall whether at the end of 1929 you talked with a member of the government with regard to the various leading personalities in the Wehrmacht, and that you made a comment which subsequently became known concerning certain personalities?
SEVERING: Yes, it is correct that on one occasion I had been asked to give a personal estimate of certain military personalities. I named Gröner and Raeder in this connection.
DR. SIEMERS: Herr Minister, how many concentration camps do you know of?
SEVERING: How many do I know of now?
DR. SIEMERS: I am sorry; not now. How many did you know of before the collapse of Germany?
SEVERING: Perhaps 6 to 8.
DR. SIEMERS: Herr Minister, did you know before the collapse of Germany or rather did you know in 1944 already about the mass murders which have been dealt with so frequently in this proceeding?
SEVERING: I gained knowledge of concentration camps when murder, if I may say so, became professional and when I heard of a few cases which affected me personally very deeply. First of all, I was told that the Police President of Altona, a member of the Reichstag and a Social Democrat of the right wing of the Party, had been murdered in the concentration camp at Papenburg. Another friend of mine, the chairman of the Miners Union, Fritz Husemann, is said to have been murdered shortly after his being committed to the same concentration camp. Another friend of mine, Ernst Heimann, was beaten to death in the Oranienburg Camp according to the reports received by his family.