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View of the defendants' dock during a session of the trial of 61 former camp personnel and prisoners from Mauthausen.

Photograph | Digitized | Photograph Number: 11706

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    View of the defendants' dock during a session of the trial of 61 former camp personnel and prisoners from Mauthausen.
    View of the defendants' dock during a session of the trial of 61 former camp personnel and prisoners from Mauthausen.  

Pictured in front is defendant Dr. Eduard Krebsbach.

    Overview

    Caption
    View of the defendants' dock during a session of the trial of 61 former camp personnel and prisoners from Mauthausen.

    Pictured in front is defendant Dr. Eduard Krebsbach.
    Date
    1946 March 29 - 1946 May 13
    Locale
    Dachau, [Bavaria] Germany
    Photo Credit
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Albert Barkin
    Event History
    Sixty-one former camp personnel and prisoners from Mauthausen were brought to trial in front of an American Military Tribunal in Dachau, Germany. All of the defendants were charged with violation of the laws and usages of war, and specifically with subjecting non-Germans to killing, beating, torture, and starvation. Among those charged was August Eigruber, the former Gauleiter of Upper Austria and one of the people who helped establish the camp. The trial began March 29 and lasted only six weeks, with the court finding all sixty-one defendants guilty on May 11, saying that there was enough evidence of death by shootings, gassings, hangings and starvation to find every member of the camp personnel culpable. On May 13, the court sentenced fifty-eight of the defendants to death and gave the other three life sentences. Later, nine of the death sentences were reduced to life sentences. Those sentenced to death were hanged on May 27-28, 1947 in the yard of the Landsberg prison.

    https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005140.

    Rights & Restrictions

    Photo Source
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
    Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
    Provenance: Albert Barkin

    Keywords & Subjects

    Administrative Notes

    Biography
    Eduard Krebsbach (1894-1947), SS concentration camp physician who initiated the mass execution of ill and unfit prisoners by heart injections. Krebsbach received his doctorate from the University of Bonn. He worked for many years as a pediatrician and in-plant doctor, before applying for membership in the SS in 1937. The following year he was inducted into the SS as Untersturmführer (SS second lieutenant). Between the fall of 1941 and the fall of 1943 Krebsbach served as Standortarzt (chief physician) of the SS and the Police at the Linz, Steyr, Wels and Gusen satellite camps of Mauthausen. In this period he initiated the mass execution of sick prisoners by heart injections (Spritzen), for which he earned the nickname "Dr. Spritzbach". (Heart injections were given at the Gusen camp twice a week until April 1945). Krebsbach's career at Mauthausen ended abruptly after he shot and killed a German soldier by the name of Josef Breitenfellner while on vacation in May 1943. Krebsbach was then transferred to the Warwara concentration camp, where he led the selections and presided over the liquidation of the camp in August 1944. Afterwards Krebsbach became "Inspector for Epidemics" in Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania and then Oberstabsarzt (chief staff doctor) in the regular army. At the end of 1944 he left that job as well and went to work as the company doctor in a textile factory in the city of Kassel. Krebsbach was captured after the war and sentenced to death by a U.S. military court in Dachau on May 5, 1946. His execution took place in Landsberg on May 28, 1947.

    [Source: Mauthausen Concentration Camp Memorial (29 August 2002)]
    Record last modified:
    2004-11-09 00:00:00
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/pa1046806

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