Eduard Krebsbach

Eduard Krebsbach (8 August 1894 – 28 May 1947) was a former German physician and SS doctor in the Nazi concentration camp in Mauthausen from July 1941 to August 1943. He was executed for atrocities committed at the Mauthausen camp. 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: As the senior SS doctor in the camp, Dr Krebsbach sometimes came to block 5 and had the still surviving Jews paraded before him. He then asked if any of them were doctors. If there were, he would say: "You Jewish pig, you’re just an abortionist." The next day they were done away with by the kapos. If a Jewish inmate was lying on the floor with a broken limb - a not uncommon occurrence at work - he was usually thrown over a wall by a kapo. If Dr Krebsbach were passing, he would say ironically: "Yes, this broken foot is a hopeless case." Krebsbach was transferred to the Kaiserwald concentration camp in Latvia during the autumn of 1943. The reason for his transfer is believed to be his shooting of 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 2000 weakest to be killed.