DR. HAENSEL: You were never arrested at all?
SEVERING: No, with the exception of the one case which I also mentioned this morning.
DR. HAENSEL: Did you at any time express the opinion that what had been achieved in Germany in the social sphere after 1933 did, to a considerable extent, represent the ideal of previous governments?
SEVERING: Yes, I expressed this as follows: “What was new was not good, and what was good was not new.”
DR. HAENSEL: Do you believe that any German, be he a Party member, a member of the SS or not, must have had any knowledge of events at Auschwitz of which you yourself knew nothing at all?
SEVERING: No. He would not necessarily have to possess this knowledge. I would not go so far as to say that. But he might, perhaps, have known about it.
DR. HAENSEL: And what exactly do you mean by “He might, perhaps, have known about it”?
SEVERING: Through guards escorting the transport echelons. They did not always remain in the area of the concentration camps; they usually returned.
DR. HAENSEL: And if they were sworn to the strictest secrecy?
SEVERING: Then they could not tell anything.