DR. HAENSEL: And later, did you hear of many other such cases, or did you have personal knowledge of them?
SEVERING: From personal knowledge which is so certain that I could give it with a clear conscience to the Tribunal only in the cases I mentioned this morning.
DR. HAENSEL: Were you told that concentration camps were places in which the political opponents of the regime were to be interned without anything worse happening to them than loss of liberty?
SEVERING: Whether I was told that?
DR. HAENSEL: Whether you were told that, whether you heard that?
SEVERING: No. On the contrary, I heard that concentration camps meant to the population the very incarnation of all that is terrible.
DR. HAENSEL: What do you mean by “population”? Do you also mean those sections of the population who had some official connection with the Party: small Party members, small SA men and small members of the SS?
SEVERING: I cannot say anything about that since I conversed nearly exclusively with opponents of the system.
DR. HAENSEL: Do you believe that these opponents with whom you conversed presented a united front against anyone who wore a party emblem or a badge of some organization?
SEVERING: No. This question upon which you are dwelling affects wide sections of the population, their general humanitarian feeling, and their feeling of indignation about conditions in the camps, as and when the facts became known.