After the
Nazi seizure of power in 1933, Krebsbach was dismissed from his position as district physician as an alleged opponent of the Nazis. In the autumn of 1933, he opened a medical practice in Freiburg and, at the same time, worked as a contract physician for the Freiburg police department. In June 1933, he joined the SS (SS number 106,821) and the
Nazi Party. There were problems with Krebsbach's party membership, but he reapplied and was admitted effective 1 May 1937 (membership number 4,142,556).
Concentration camp actions In the autumn of 1941, Krebsbach became
Standortarzt (garrison doctor) of
Mauthausen concentration camp, tasked with supervising medical care and all medical personnel of the camp. He was responsible for initiating mass killing by
lethal injection to the heart of handicapped and sick prisoners. Under his supervision, approximately 900 Russian, Polish and Czech prisoners were murdered by lethal injections of
gasoline and
phenol. Because of this, inmates nicknamed him 'Dr. Spritzbach' (Dr. Injection). Krebsbach was also responsible for the construction of a
gas chamber in the basement of the hospital in the Mauthausen camp. Krebsbach often inspected the prisoners and conducted selections for execution. A former inmate recalled Krebsbach's actions during such an inspection: Krebsbach was transferred to the
Kaiserwald concentration camp in
Latvia during the autumn of 1943. The reason for his transfer is believed to be an incident in which he shot and killed Josef Breitenfellner, a vacationing German soldier, who awoke Krebsbach from his sleep on 22 May 1943. While at Kaiserwald, Krebsbach conducted selections of camp inmates for execution, by forcing the prisoners to perform physical exercises to determine their strength and then identifying the 2,000 weakest to be killed. Following the camp's closure, Krebsbach resumed a career as “Epidemic Inspector for
Latvia,
Estonia and
Lithuania”. Soon after, he transferred to the regular army as a senior staff doctor, serving until late 1944. However, this was short lived and at the end of 1944 he left the army and worked once again as a company doctor in a spinning mill in
Kassel. == Post-war trial for war crimes ==