Oskar Heinz Kusch (6 April 1918 – 12 May 1944) was a German naval officer and U-boat commander in World War II who was executed for comments critical of the Nazi state.
[1] According to Berlin Police from October 1936 to March 1937 Kusch had written in letters to his former Bündische Jugend leader criticising the Reich Labor Service.
[2]: 325 Kusch was stationed on the light cruiser Emden from 3 April 1939 to 31 March 1940 after serving on various training ships and taking part in courses as a Fähnrich zur See.
Shortly before leaving, Kusch ordered his stoker to remove the picture of Adolf Hitler in the officer's room saying "Take that away, we're not practicing idolatry here".
It soon became clear that there were political differences between Kusch and the 1st watch officer Leutnant zur See Ulrich Abel and chief engineer Kurt Druschel, both dedicated Nazis.
"[1] During the patrol, U-154 attacked a convoy off Cape São Roque on the Brazilian coast and sank two freighters and a tanker.
Radio mate Kurt Isensee testified that the political arguments between Kusch and Druschel and Abel became increasingly heated during this patrol: "As a Sonar operator, I often witnessed political conversations that took place in the officers' lounge, and from which one could clearly see that it was not just about a conversation like on the first trip, but that Druschel and Abel used every opportunity to oppose them.
In this document he described Kusch's behavior, but in contrast to Isensee he expressed himself negatively: "He considered the war criminal and lost, the submarine ridiculous and finished.
Nothdurft reports that Kusch called Hitler "a madman, a criminal, the worst misfortune that could befall the German people, and a mad carpet-biter."
Abel allegedly reported Kusch after hearing a speech by Lieutenant Commander Ernst Kals, who presented Karl Dönitz's "Decree Against Criticism and Bitching" of 9 September 1943.
On 16 January 1944, Captain Hans-Rudolf Rösing, commander of U-Boote West, initiated preliminary proceedings against Kusch for "undermining the armed forces, insulting the Reich and atrocity propaganda."
The trial against Kusch began on 26 January 1944 in Kiel at the Court of the Higher Command of Submarine Training chaired by Karl-Heinrich Hagemann, the president naval judge and a staunch Nazi.
[1] On the evening of 26 January, Kusch was sentenced to death and one year in prison for "continuing to disintegrate the armed forces and for listening to foreign broadcasts" and his civil rights were revoked.
The public prosecutor's office in Kiel brought two counts of crimes against humanity against Hagemann, the judge who had sentenced Kusch and another lieutenant captain to death.
The district court wrote in its verdict that political motives for the death sentence could not be identified, but that Kusch had failed in the military.
[1] A request from the state parliament member Christel Aschmoneit-Lücke to the Schleswig-Holstein Ministry of Justice made the case public again in the 1990s.
Due to the work of the naval historian Heinrich Walle, who had evaluated the case files, Kusch was rehabilitated in 1996.