Ernst Busch (22 January 1900 - 8 June 1980) was a German singer and actor. He was born in Kiel and died in Berlin.
Busch first rose to prominence as an interpreter of political songs, particularly those of Kurt Tucholsky, in the Berlin cabaret scene of the 1920s. He starred in the original 1928 production of Bertolt Brecht's Threepenny Opera, as well as the subsequent 1931 film by Georg Wilhelm Pabst. He also appeared in the movie Kuhle Wampe.
A lifelong Communist, Busch fled Nazi Germany in 1933 with the Gestapo on his heels, eventually settling in the Soviet Union. In 1937 he joined the International Brigades to fight against fascism in Spain. After Spain fell to Franco, he emigrated to Belgium, where he was interned during the Nazi occupation and later imprisoned in Camp Gurs, France and Berlin. Freed by the Red Army in 1945, he settled in East Berlin, where he worked with Bertold Brecht and Erwin Piscator at the "Berliner Ensemble". A beloved figure in the German Democratic Republic, he is best remembered for his performance in the title role of Brecht's Galileo, and for his stirring recordings of workers songs, including many written by Hanns Eisler. He also made a memorable and haunting recording of Peat Bog Soldiers.