The case of Eduard Krebsbach can never be forgotten when reading about the Holocaust. It depicts the loss of humanity in a doctor, a person who is supposed to save lives, and allows him to think in a perverted, vicious manner.
Mauthausen camp, the prisoners referred to him as Dr. Spritz (Dr. Injection) due to his tendency of killing a number of people by injecting them with gasoline or phenol straight into their hearts. This did not constitute in his view a crime. He regarded it as a medical activity that was normal to him.
The most aggravating part is the fact that he remained relatively calm throughout the trial. Krebsbach did not attempt to deny the killings when the prosecutor questioned him on the matter. He likened weak and sick people to deformed animals that are to be put to rest. According to him, killing them was a show of kindness since it relieved the state of the burden to take care of them.
This is the essence of Nazi mentality: when you do not work or serve, you do not have a life.
He never actually pleaded guilty. He claimed that he was just doing his job as he thought. We are aware of this largely due to Hans Marsalek, a survivor of the war who wrote about everything he witnessed and heard down.
Krebsbach is not able to avoid justice. He was found guilty of war crimes in 1946 in the Dachau Trials by the U.S. military. He was hanged up in the Landsberg Prison in 1947. His tale is a black yet significant lesson to us of how low one can descend when he puts his mind into cruelty rather than mercy.
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