He was arrested after the fall of the Nazi regime, incarcerated from 1945 to 1947 but released due to ill health and died without ever facing trial.

He fought on the western front, attained the rank of Leutnant in the reserves and earned the Iron Cross, 1st and 2nd class and the Order of Hohenzollern.

Although the position involved a promotion, he hesitated when informed by the Chancellery Chief Hans Lammers that membership in the Nazi Party was a prerequisite.

[3] On 1 February 1938, Kritzinger accepted the transfer to the Reich Chancellery as head of Division B with the civil service rank of Ministerialdirektor, and he joined the Nazi Party (membership number 4,841,517).

He also was involved with the drafting of draconian wartime legislation such as the so called Regulation Against Public Pests (Verordnung gegen Volksschädlinge) of 5 September 1939, which imposed the death penalty for acts like looting and arson.

[6] Kritzinger stayed on at the Reich Chancellery and, as the management of the Second World War consumed more and more of Adolf Hitler's time and energy, Lammers was usually with the Führer at his military field headquarters.

He was rewarded on 21 November 1942 when Hitler promoted him to State Secretary of the Chancellery, making him the senior civil servant in the staff of about seventy-five.

The workload began to take a toll on Kritzinger's health, necessitating a six week leave of absence in the spring of 1943 for high blood pressure and impaired vision.

Making his way westward, he continued to serve as the Chancellery's State Secretary in the Flensburg government set up under Hitler's appointed successor, Großadmiral Karl Dönitz.

He also acknowledged the criminal nature of the conference, and he testified that he had been ashamed of German politics during the war, admitting that Hitler and Heinrich Himmler were mass murderers.

The rationale cited was that Kritzinger "participated in the issuing of a number of decrees contrary to the rule of law and attended the meeting of state secretaries on 20 January 1942".