YOUR instincts are the right ones. Please, please, please, do not let your husband treat the baby this way any more. Babies need to know that their needs will be met and that they will be treated with love, affection, and respect. Babies do not "learn" not to cry - imagine what you would do if you had no other way to communicate and needed help - the only way the kind of treatment your husband is advocating would "teach" the baby not to cry is if it "teaches" him that he might as well give up because no one is going to take care of him or treat him kindly. And this will result ultimately in a much needier, clingier, more insecure child. Please get help from a social worker, nurse, pediatrician, or someone else who can back you up - or if nothing else, every single child care book or pamphlet that's been written in the past thirty years.
Where you can do something differently is in not rocking your son all the way to sleep before you put him down, but instead rocking him until he's pretty drowsy or almost asleep, then putting him down and soothing him to sleep - but he actually finishes falling asleep in his crib. This gradually results in a baby who can be put down and just fall asleep on his own. I know it is hard - I went through it twice - but you will have to start a process where you gently and gradually teach him to fall asleep on his own. The book "No Cry Sleep Solution" saved my life twice in helping me learn how to do this. This may involve a little bit of protesting on his part sometimes - but that is not the same as treating the baby harshly so that he shuts up.
People have different philosophies about letting babies "cry it out" or not and that's fine - but no one espouses the philosophy of scolding or frightening them into sleeping. That makes no sense. I feel strongly that if this approach of your husband's is not nipped in the bud it will cause big problems for all of you down the line. I am sorry to be going on and on and probably sounding like a know-it-all - my own father treated us much as you are describing, and it caused lasting problems and anger in our family.
Please read that book, or another book, or ask your pediatrician or someone at your local health department (this is free) for help in developing a plan to gently teach your son to fall asleep on his own. Or email me directly and I would be more than glad to discuss this with you more and offer any help at all that I can.