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Harald Kosmo, ohne Datum
© Privatbesitz

Harald Kosmo * 1919

Suhrenkamp 98 (Hamburg-Nord, Ohlsdorf)

HARALD KOSMO
JG. 1919
IM WIDERSTAND
VERHAFTET 21.3.1941
SVOLVAER LOFOTEN
VERURTEILT 6.5.1941
KRIEGSGERICHT OSLO
ZUCHTHAUS FUHLSBÜTTEL
ENTLASSEN 21.10.1942
TOT 23.10.1942 HAMBURG

further stumbling stones in Suhrenkamp 98:
Jasper Holtmann, Teressa Scira, Hanka Scira

Harald Kosmo, born on 25 July 1919 in Orsnes/Vagan (Lofoten), detained from 21 Mar. 1941 in Svolvær/Norway, in the Fuhlsbüttel penitentiary until 21 Oct. 1942, died on 23 Oct. 1942 in the Oberaltenallee care home (Versorgungsheim Oberaltenallee)

Suhrenkamp 98, Ohlsdorf

On his sick bed in the military hospital of the "Hamburg-Stadt pretrial detention center” on Holstenglacis, Harald Kosmo wrote his last letter to his parents in Svolvær on the Lofoten Islands on 18 Oct. 1942: "Dear loved ones [...] You must forgive my handwriting. I am lying in bed again. Tuberculosis has reached me. It was discovered only a few days ago [...]. I hope that I can come home to be cured [...].”

Three days later, he was transferred to the sick ward of the Hamburg Oberaltenallee care home. The life imprisonment to which the German Reich court martial in Oslo had sentenced him on 6 May 1941, was rescinded. Another two days later – on 23 Oct. 1942 – Harald Kosmo was dead.

In his last hours, the Norwegian naval pastor Conrad Vogt-Svendsen from Hamburg had stood by his side. He looked after the Norwegian inmates in the German prisons. On 24 Oct. 1942, he wrote to Harald Kosmo’s mother, "It was obvious that it could not be long before Harald would pass away.” [...] "Finally I stood up and said, ‘Goodbye Harald, goodbye from mother and father, and goodbye from Norway,’ and then I laid my hand on his head and bestowed my blessing on him.” And he continued, "A little later that day, I learned from the hospital that Harald had fallen asleep calmly a few hours later – after I had been with him.”

The body of Harald Kosmo was cremated on 30 Oct. 1942 in the Ohlsdorf crematorium. The ashes were transferred to Svolvær, his hometown, on 2 Dec. 1942. A few weeks later, the family received from the Fuhlsbüttel penitentiary their son’s clothing and other private utensils, which had been recorded and receipted in bureaucratic detail. The cargo labeled "1 bag of private effects weighing 20 kilograms [nearly 45 lbs]” aboard the MS "CYGNUS” operated by the "Deutsch-Norwegische Hamburg-Linie” on behalf of the church was dated 23 Jan. 1943.

Thus ended the life of a 23-year-old young man, whose personal history was defined by confidence, joy, and lust for life. His life took a tragic turn after the German Wehrmacht attacked Norway and Denmark on 9 Apr. 1940 in a campaign under the cover name "Operation Weserübung.” Thus, the disaster for the people living there took its course.

Harald Kosmo was born on 25 July 1919 in Ørsnes/Vågan (Lofoten) as the youngest of three children of the teacher Ole Kosmo and his wife Elisabeth. The family lived in Svolvær in a house by a bay, surrounded by nature and mountain peaks. The painter Einar Halfdan Berger, one of the most famous landscape painters in northern Norway since the 1930s, had previously lived there.

Harald Kosmo had an exceptional love for nature. He preferred to be outdoors in the summer and winter. On Sundays, his niece Bjørg Kosmo learned from a neighbor of the family that he had seen the brothers Harald and Odmund pass by his house with skis and backpacks as they set off for the mountains.

In 1925, Harald was enrolled in school. Primary school at "Svolvær Folkskole” was followed by secondary school. A very good student, he was described as a helpful, bright, charming boy, always in a good mood with a smile on his face. Together with his brother, he was involved in the Boy Scouts and led a group there. In 1936, he changed to secondary school, the "Nordfjordeid Landsgymnas” in Sogn og Fjordane in western Norway, some 1,500 kilometers (approx. 932 miles) south of home.

Harald distinguished himself as a very good skier even as a teenager, both in cross-country skiing, downhill skiing, and ski jumping. During his school days in Sogn og Fjordane, he further developed his athletic talent, learned slalom and ski acrobatics. The 2009 yearbook for Vågan states that Harald Kosmo was one of the pioneers of ski slalom in Lofoten and that thanks to him, slalom became popular in Svolvær much earlier than in other parts of northern Norway.

In western Norway, Harald had met a girl, "Gunni,” as he called her. Photos show a young couple in love, often among his circle friends. In the years after graduating from high school in 1938, Harald Kosmo first worked as a substitute teacher and served in the military for a short time. After the beginning of the Second World War, he got a job with the police in Svolvær; from the fall of 1940 onward, he belonged to the police reserve there, where he was held in high regard as a friend and colleague.

After the occupation of Norway by the German Wehrmacht in April 1940, the inhabitants of the Lofoten archipelago, a center of the Norwegian fishing industry, were largely spared the consequences of the war. The strategic importance of the archipelago for the German Wehrmacht and the German armaments industry lay in the production of fish oil there. This was used to produce glycerin, which was utilized as a lubricant in aircraft engines. Fishing also served to supply the German Reich. No special incidents due to the Nazi regime under Reich Commissioner Josef Terboven are documented for this first period of occupation.

On 4 Mar. 1941, British forces (about 500 soldiers), supported by 52 Norwegian commandos, reached Lofoten by water with four destroyers and several landing craft. With such military operations, the British forces intended to bind German military in Norway for occupation tasks. The attack under code name "Operation Claymore” hit the German occupation troops completely unprepared and thus became a great success for the commando operation led by the British. The landing succeeded without resistance. Important places in Lofoten – including Svolvær – were freed from German occupation for a short time. The British destroyed the production facilities and storage tanks for fish oil and oil, and blew up and sank German cargo vessels, including the "Hamburg,” a 9,000 GRT fish factory ship. In addition, the British were able to capture code documents and an encryption rotor from the German outpost boat "Krebs.” In the further course of the war, it served to decipher the Enigma encryption machine used by the German Wehrmacht in the intelligence service.

The inhabitants of Svolvær believed that the war was over and helped their liberators arrest German soldiers and Norwegian collaborators (so-called Quislings). However, the joyfully greeted liberators retreated after about 6 hours. They took with them over 200 captured German soldiers and over 60 "Quislings.” As well, 314 Norwegian war volunteers joined the British troops. They wanted to continue fighting on the side of the Allies against Hitler’s Germany to liberate their homeland.

After the withdrawal of the British commando, German occupation troops arrived again. In retaliation, they destroyed homes and imprisoned 64 civilians as hostages in the Grini police prison camp. In the Secret Situation Report of the Commander of the German Security Police and the SD dated 8 Mar. 1941, the total number of Norwegians arrested was stated as 150. The Lofoten Islands were then fortified with bunkers and the population kept under close surveillance.

Harald Kosmo was arrested on 5 Mar. 1941, just one day after the Germans’ re-occupation, at a late hour in his parents’ home. Thanks to his diary and the letters to his parents, we have knowledge of the following events. (The documents are in the possession of the Kosmo family in Tromsø. They have been published in extracts).

Regarding 4 March, Harald reported in his diary that shipwrecked and wounded Germans had been rescued from the icy cold water after the sinking of the fish processing ship "Hamburg” and taken to the house of his parents, where they received help. At that time, he himself was still in the service of the Svolvær police station. The first interrogations after his arrest in Svolvær were conducted by the police officer Jonas Lie (from 1942 to 1945, Police Minister of the puppet government headed by Vidkun Quisling, which was set up by the German occupying power).

On 8 March, Harald Kosmo was released for a short time and he returned to the police force. On 21 March, he was summoned by the German Security Service (SD). The person in charge informed him that he was under arrest and would probably be taken to Oslo. He was allowed to pick up clothes and hygiene articles from his parents’ house and he bid farewell in the hope of returning soon. His mother could not believe that she of all people, someone who had helped shipwrecked Germans on 4 March and given them dry clothes, would now have her son taken away "as thanks.”

That same evening, Harald Kosmo was transported to the detention building in the nearby village of Kabelvag, and on 26 March, together with a few other prisoners, they were taken aboard the MS "Richard With,” a ship of the Hurtigruten postal shipping line, which continued the regular service on Norway’s west coast during the war years. They traveled by ship to Trondheim, then by train to Oslo.

There, the prisoners were first taken to Gestapo headquarters in the Victoria Terrasse building complex, and after the initial interrogations, they were transferred to the Oslo fortress of Akershus, which served the Germans as a prison for political prisoners between 1940 and 1945. (Over 40 people were shot there during the German occupation). Further interrogations ensued for Harald Kosmo in Victoria Terrasse, which was feared by all prisoners because of the torture inflicted there. This was followed by several weeks in solitary confinement.

Harald Kosmo’s diary and letters to his parents reflect his changing emotions, which oscillated between confidence, hope, fear, and despair. Harald wrote about days of loneliness and monotony, about his longing for home and a hoped-for reunion with his family. He spent time in prayer and reading the New Testament. Trusting in his innocence and in the justice of the Germans, he expected a good outcome. Harald longed to enjoy the sun in the open air again, wrote that he sang in his cell in the evening, and looked forward to the end of the war, a reunion with "Gunni” and a later life together. It was not granted to them.

On 19 Apr. 1941, Harald Kosmo learned that the trial against him and five other Norwegians was to be opened on 29 Apr. 1941 in Oslo before the Third Bench (Senat) of the German Reich Military Court. The representative of the prosecution was Navy Marineoberkriegsgerichtsrat (supreme Reich navy military court judge) Johannes Reimer. Harald noted about him in his diary that he had made a thoroughly sympathetic impression during a previous interrogation, and Harald therefore hoped for fair treatment. This hope turned out to be deceptive: Reimer demanded a life sentence. (Reimer survived the war, was not held responsible in the post-war period in West Germany and he officiated – according to Braunbuch – Kriegs- und Naziverbrecher in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland und in Westberlin [Brown Book: War and Nazi Criminals in West Germany] published in 1968 in the GDR – after the war as a Regional Court judge (Landgerichtsrat) at the Regional Court in Lübeck).

On 25 April, the representative of the prosecution informed all six Norwegians arrested in Svolvær that they would face severe punishments "for treason” (sentence for aiding and abetting the enemy), but would be given every opportunity to defend themselves.
Four days later, the trial began in the Oslo Court House, followed by trial sessions on 30 April 30, 1 May, and 3 May. During the trial, the defense lawyer was in contact with Harald’s father. The father provided the name of a German seaman from the fish factory ship "Hamburg,” whom the family had helped as shipwrecked sailor. The name was also read out in the trial, in the hope of a milder punishment for Harald.

On 6 May 1941, Harald was sentenced to life in a penitentiary. In his diary, he wrote, "Yes, now it is over. I have been handed a life sentence. I think it is all a joke. They wanted to set a deterrent example and so here we are. But when the war is over, no matter who wins, we will be free men again. That is how I see it. I just hope you mother, take this calmly.” And further on in the entry: "Krystad 5 years, Valeur, Hyll and Kramer 3 years, and Nilsen 2 years. Life and property were left to us. But what am I to do with my life and possessions if I have to spend my whole life in prison?”

The trial was presided over by presiding judge of the Bench (Senatspräsident) Karl Schmauser. Schmauser had been a member of the Reich Military Court since its establishment on 1 Oct. 1936, and he had risen to the position of presiding judge of the Third Bench on 1 Jan. 1939. (Promoted to General Staff Judge on 1 May 1944; he acted as a merciless military judge until the Reich Military Court fled Torgau in Apr. 1945, handing down several death sentences, including those against members of the "Red Orchestra” ("Rote Kapelle”) in Berlin, and he even survived the war unscathed. He was taken prisoner by the U.S. Army in Bavaria on 11 May 1945, interrogated several times, but never charged. The denazification proceedings were discontinued on 1 Feb. 1947, because he was "not affected by the law.” Schmauser died on 24 Jan. 1960, near Munich; his widow received generous survivor’s benefits. It was not until 1988 that the Central Office of the State Justice Administrations in Ludwigsburg initiated preliminary proceedings against him, which were discontinued because he had long since passed away).

Harald Kosmo and the other convicted prisoners from Svolvær had to stay in the prison of the Akershus fortress in Oslo for another six weeks until they were transferred to Germany. During this time, Harald Kosmo received a visit from the lawyer Mellbye, who had represented him in the proceedings before the Reich Military Court and at the time was preparing a petition for clemency. His father was also able to see him briefly, and brought some sweets, cheese, and a piece of sausage. Harald noted that this had been a blessed day. He still ate from the gifts by 17 May, the Norwegian national holiday, as he wrote in a letter home. His parents received this letter, a subsequent letter, and the diary only after Harald’s death in Oct. 1942.

However, some letters from Akershus reached his parents, apparently even in circumvention of censorship and control, presumably forwarded by a helper among the German guards in prison. In this way, Harald was able to receive from his parents a remittance, actually forbidden, from which he could buy books, paper, and writing materials.

One of the few interruptions to the dreary existence in the solitary cell was a visit from a clergyman.
On 31 May, Harald Kosmo and the other Norwegians who had been tried before the Reich Military Court received confirmation of their verdict by the presiding judge of the Reich Military Court, Admiral Max Bastian.

Bastian, who as presiding judge was responsible for confirming the verdicts of the Reich Military Court – including numerous death sentences – used to urge the judges of his court to ensure the effectiveness of the Wehrmacht through "rapid and strict but also fair application of martial laws.” (In 1947, he was charged with various war crimes and imprisoned, but was released after only one year in prison. Dying in Mar. 1958, he was buried in Wilhelmshaven with military honors from the newly reinstated German Navy. Not until the early 1990s did the view became established that the judges of the Reich Military Court, like others of the Nazi military judicial system, had administered injustices and that they actually ought to have been held accountable after 1945 "for obstruction of justice in concomitance with capital crimes.” In a 1995 ruling, the German Federal Court of Justice called this omission "a serious failure of the Federal German criminal justice system.”).

On Sunday, 1 June, Harald Kosmo wrote in his diary about the "execution of two pilots” at Akershus. He had watched them "as they walked past the window” and guessed what was in store for them. In his last letter from Akershus, dated 17 June 1941, he wrote about faith and optimism, sending greetings to his loved ones, his brother, and all friends of his "ski slalom gang.” He hoped to be pardoned or to receive a lesser sentence with easier prison conditions. On that day, he finished his diary.

The prisoners were then sent to Hamburg. On 23 June 1941, Harald Kosmo and his five fellow sufferers arrived in Fuhlsbüttel penitentiary. Harald Kosmo was again committed to solitary confinement. In the letters home, which the prisoners were allowed to write and receive every six weeks, he reassured his parents that he had arrived safely and would certainly be home soon, but he also reported hunger, loneliness, and cold. As a prisoner, he was not allowed to receive food packages. He also mentioned church services for which the Norwegian seaman’s pastor came to the prison.

On 9 Aug. 1941, Wilhelm Keitel, Chief of the High Command of the Wehrmacht (OKW), rejected the pardon requested for all six Norwegians. The Fuhlsbüttel penitentiary received notification of this on 19 August, and its administrative inspector confirmed the announcement to the affected prisoners on 30 Aug. 1941.

A second attempt by the Norwegian side to obtain a pardon for the men incarcerated in the penitentiary also remained unsuccessful. It was rejected by the chief of the OKW on 7 May 1942, and the decision was forwarded to the "Board of Directors of the Fuhlsbüttel penitentiary” by the Reich Military Court on 15 May 1942.

On the morning of 15 July 1942, Harald Kosmo was transferred to the central hospital of the Hamburg penal institutions on Holstenglacis. He spent the last days of his life in the large hospital room of the military hospital, his bed next to that of a sick fellow compatriot. He wrote to his parents that they could talk to each other all day and he believed "that now the time would become much easier for him as compared to healthy and in the solitude of solitary confinement.”

However, he was left with this hope for only a few days. He was released from prison on 21 October, and on 23 Oct. 1942, he died in the Oberaltenallee care home (Versorgungsheim Oberaltenallee) in Barmbek. We do not know whether the short-term release and transfer to Oberaltenallee was intended to serve the purpose of medical care or rather aimed at concealing a "death in the custody” of the penitentiary. On the preserved prison file card of Harald Kosmo, the date of death is noted with reference to the illness (Tb).

In Jan. 1943, an intercession service for Harald Kosmo was held in Svolvær. For the burial of the urn, the family waited until the end of the war and the surrender of the Germans. The funeral service took place on 20 July 1945 at the local cemetery, with great sympathy expressed by the inhabitants of Svolvær and many friends of Harald Kosmo.

Today, a granite column is located in front of the church in Svolvær. It features a metal plaque engraved with the names of the men who lost their lives between 1940 and 1945, among them Harald Kosmos, whose life ended in Hamburg. "They gave their lives for Norway. Peace with their memory” is what one can read on the plaque for the dead "who never wanted this war.”

Translator: Erwin Fink
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: December 2020
© Hans-Joachim Klier

Quellen: StaH 242-1 II_Ablieferung 17, Hyll, Valeur, Kramer, Kosmo, Krystad, Nilsen; StaH 332-5_72 Sterberegister Hamburg 6 Nr. 812, Feldurteil des Reichskriegsgerichts, 3. Senat Oslo vom 6. Mai 1941-StPl. (RKA) III 164/41 – StPl. (HDL) III 40/41; KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme, Verzeichnis der Verstorbenen Monat Oktober-November 1942, Blatt 394/395, Ziffer 5721, Krematorium Friedhof Ohlsdorf; KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme "Die unsichtbaren Helfer – Die Hamburgerin Hiltgunt Zassenhaus und die norwegische Seemannsmission im Einsatz für die Norweger im Zuchthaus Fuhlsbüttel 1941-1954", Wanderausstellung 2006; Bundesarchiv Außenstelle Ludwigsburg, AR-Z 4/88 (B162/40905); Staatsarchiv München, Spk A_K 1267, Dr. Schmauser, Karl; BayHStA_595OP_48680; Stadtarchiv Nürnberg, Geburtsregister, Signatur: C 27/IV Nr. 259; Gemeinde Haar, Archiv, Sterbeeintrag Nr. 30, 25. Januar 1960; Militärhistorisches Archiv Prag, Bestand Reichskriegsgericht (1936-1945), A-Z Bd (K254), Vollstreckungsliste; National Archives, Maryland, USA, Interrogation Report SAIC/PIR/147; Meldungen aus Norwegen 1940-1945, "Die geheimen Lageberichte des Befehlshabers der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD in Norwegen" Larsen, Sandberg u. Dahm, München 2008, S 202; Magnus Koch, Norwegische Verurteilte der Wehrmachtsjustiz, in: "Rücksichten auf den Einzelnen haben zurückzutreten" Hamburg und die Wehrmachtsjustiz im Zweiten Weltkrieg, KZ-Gedenkstätte Neuengamme, Landeszentrale für politische Bildung in Hamburg, Hamburg 2019; Günter Gribbohm, "Das Reichskriegsgericht – Die Institution und ihre rechtliche Bewertung", Berlin 2004; Norbert Haase, Das RKG und der Widerstand gegen die nationalsozialistische Herrschaft, Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand, Berlin 1993 S. 57; Wolfram Wette, "Mit reinem Gewissen", Berlin 2011, S.92; BGH 5Str 747/94, Urteil vom 16.11.1995; Bjørg Kosmo, "Harald Kosmo og Lofotraidet”, Årbok for Vågan 2011; Svolvær, Lofoten; Persönliche Gespräche des Verfassers mit Bjørg Kosmo, 9020 Tromsdalen, Theodor Hagerups veg 42, 2019-2020; https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conrad_Vogt-Svendsen [11.4.2020]; https://no.wikipedia. org/wiki/Einar_Berger [11.4.4.2020]; https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Terboven [11.4.2020]; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Claymore [11.4.2020]; https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Claymore [11.4.2020]; https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polizeih%C3%A4ftlingslager_Grini [11.04.2020]; https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Jonas_Lie_(Politiker) [11.04.2020]; https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vidkun_Quisling [11.04.2020];
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festung_Akershus#Zweiter_Weltkrieg [11.04.2020];
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Bastian [11.04.2020].