SEVERING: Technically by the Reichswehrminister and politically by the Cabinet.
DR. SIEMERS: Thank you very much. I have no further questions to put to the witness.
DR. EGON KUBUSCHOK (Counsel for Defendant Von Papen): On what legal regulation was your exemption from the duties of Minister of the Interior in Prussia, on 20 July 1932, based?
SEVERING: The release from my duties?
DR. KUBUSCHOK: Yes. The release from your duties.
SEVERING: It was based on Article 48.
DR. KUBUSCHOK: Who, on the strength of Article 48, issued emergency decrees?
SEVERING: This emergency decree was issued by the Reich President, who alone was entitled to do so.
DR. KUBUSCHOK: Was the fact that you were removed from office on 20 July, under the circumstances which you have just described, based on the fact that Von Papen and Hindenburg, who issued the decree, were of the opinion that the emergency decree was legal, whereas it was your point of view that the legal basis for the emergency decree did not exist and in consequence you remained in your office?
SEVERING: I was of the opinion, and it was later confirmed by the Supreme Court (Reichsgericht) that the President of the Reich was authorized on the strength of Article 48 to issue directives for the maintenance of peace and order; and if he did not see in the Prussian Ministers, and particularly in myself as Minister of Police, sufficient guarantee that this peace and order would be insured in Prussia, he had the right to relieve us of our police functions, and especially to exclude us from all other executive measures. But he did not have the right to discharge us as ministers.