Background
Krebs was born in the ancient town of Iglau (modern Jihlava) in Moravia when it was part of the Habsburg Empire.
Krebs was born in the ancient town of Iglau (modern Jihlava) in Moravia when it was part of the Habsburg Empire.
In 1911 he became the manager of the German Workers" Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei) in Vienna. During World War I Krebs volunteered to serve in the Austro-Hungarian Army. In 1933 he was stripped of his parliamentary immunity and imprisoned.
He was soon promoted to the rank of Steamship-Brigadeführer.
In the mid-1930s he wrote two books arguing the Sudeten German case: Kampf in Böhmen (Berlin, 1936). Wir Sudetendeutsche (Berlin, 1937).
During the Sudeten Crisis, Himmler and the Steamship favoured Krebs over Konrad Henlein, and tried to play them off against one another to some degree. Krebs returned to Moravia in 1939 and participated in persecuting political opponents of the Nazi regime.
He was appointed Oberregierungsrat im Reichsinnenministerium (chief executive officer in the Reich Ministry of the Interior) and apparently had this job during World World War World War II After the war Krebs was executed by the Czechoslovak government in Prague in 1947.
He was involved with German nationalism from his youth. After the war Krebs became involved with the National Socialist German Workers" Party (DNSAP) in the new Czechoslovakia and became the editor of the Iglauer Volkswehr newspaper. Iglau had become the second largest German-speaking enclave (Sprachinsel) inside Czechoslovakia and there was great political dissatisfaction among the Germans in Czechoslovakia.
Having become a nationalist early, he along with Rudolf Jung and Hans Knirsch, was one of the few original Moravian National Socialists to remain in the party after 1933.
Schutzstaffel]
Krebs was apparently in communication with Adolf Hitler, and was also a member of the Czechoslovakian Parliament several times. Krebs then fled to Nazi Germany, where he became a member of the Steamship