DR. HAENSEL: Do you know of cases where people were condemned for speaking of such matters?
SEVERING: No.
DR. HAENSEL: Did you ever hear anything about the activities of the “special courts”?
SEVERING: No, in any case I heard nothing in connection with these particular activities of the “special courts.”
DR. HAENSEL: But the sentences pronounced against people who listened to foreign broadcasts (Schwarzhörer) and to people accused of spreading so-called false rumors, were published very often in the papers. Did you never read them?
SEVERING: No.
DR. STEINBAUER: Witness, I have only one question to ask you. You told us this morning that in 1919 you were a member of the Weimar National Assembly. May I ask what the attitude of the National Assembly was—particularly of the faction of the Social Democrats of whom you too were a leader—towards the problem of the Austrian “Anschluss”?
SEVERING: During the time of the sessions of the Weimar National Assembly I was Reich and State Commissioner for the Rhineland and Westphalia, and was seldom able to participate in the debates of the Weimar National Assembly. I therefore have no detailed knowledge as to how these matters were formulated or expressed. But one thing I do know and that is, that it was practically the unanimous wish of the Assembly to include a paragraph, or an article in the Constitution, ratifying the “Anschluss” of Austria to Germany.
DR. STEINBAUER: Thank you. I have no further questions.
THE PRESIDENT: Does the Prosecution wish to cross-examine?