Concentration Camp Career
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 on handicapped and sick prisoners. Under his supervision around 900 Russian, Polish and Czech prisoners were murdered by lethal injections of Benzene. 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 recalls 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.' " Josef Herzler, former Mauthausen inmate (AMM V/3/22).
Dr. Krebsbach was transferred to the Kaiserwald concentration camp in Latvia during the autumn of 1943 as it is believed he shot Josef Breitenfellner in his home, a German soldier from Langenstein on vacation when he and his friends awoke Krebsbach from his sleep on 22 May 1943. Here he conducted selections, identified inmates to be gassed, until the camps liquidation in August 1944.
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.
Read more about this topic: Eduard Krebsbach
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