He served as the last Chief of Staff of the Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH) during the final phase of the war in Europe (1 April to 1 May 1945).

Krebs tried to open surrender negotiations with the Red Army; he committed suicide in the Führerbunker during the early hours of 2 May 1945, two days after Adolf Hitler killed himself.

In 1931, Krebs worked in the Defence Ministry, where he maintained contacts with the Red Army in the context of joint military exercises conducted by the two countries.

Krebs held strong antisemitic and anti-Communist views, as evidenced by his description of the members of the Soviet military delegation that visited Berlin in 1932: "a sly and cunning Jew,... [and] a Jewish half-breed ... insincere, with a suspicious and treacherous nature, apparently a fanatic Communist.

"[2] In 1936, Krebs was posted to the German embassy in Moscow as a military attaché; he held this position up to the invasion of the Soviet Union.

[4] While serving on the Eastern Front, Krebs was promoted to the rank of Generalmajor when Chief of Staff of the 9th Army in February 1942.

[8] On 29 April, Krebs, Burgdorf, Joseph Goebbels, and Martin Bormann witnessed and signed the last will and testament of Adolf Hitler.

[10] Late that evening, Krebs contacted General Alfred Jodl (Supreme Army Command) by radio and made the following demands: "Request immediate report.

In the early morning of 30 April, Jodl replied to Krebs: "Firstly, Wenck's spearhead bogged down south of Schwielow Lake.

[12] On 1 May, after Hitler's suicide on 30 April, Goebbels sent Krebs and Colonel Theodor von Dufving, under a white flag, to deliver a letter he had written to General Vasily Chuikov.

[13] Chuikov, who was not aware that there was a bunker complex under the Reich Chancellery or that Hitler was married, calmly subterfuged that he already knew all that.

The responsibility for surrendering the city fell to General Helmuth Weidling, the commander of the Berlin Defense Area.

"[11]As the Soviets advanced on the Reich Chancellery, Krebs was last seen by others, including Junge, in the Führerbunker when they left to attempt to escape.

Krebs and General Wilhelm Burgdorf, along with SS-Obersturmbannführer Franz Schädle of the Führerbegleitkommando, stayed behind with the intention of committing suicide.

[18] Thereafter, the corpses of Krebs, the Goebbels family along with the remains of Hitler's dogs were repeatedly buried and exhumed by the Soviets.

[22] On 4 April 1970, a Soviet KGB team with detailed burial charts secretly exhumed five wooden boxes.