At the time of their deaths, both Krebs and Burgdorf held key positions in the Wehrmacht (Chief of Staff of the OKH and Hitler's chief Wehrmacht adjutant respectively), but this was not always the case, both men being promoted to these positions very late in the war (In particular Krebs was promoted to Chief of Staff in April of 1945). At the beginning of the war both men held relatively mid level General staff roles, moving on up as the war progressed to their eventual positions.

However, Krebs served as the military attache from 1936 in Moscow up until the invasion of the Soviet Union and provided information about the state of the Soviet Army back to Berlin in the build up to Barbarossa, which could technically be seen as either "participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of a crime against peace" or "planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression and other crimes against peace", both of which were indictments at Nuremberg.

In terms of the other indictments, regarding war crimes and crimes against humanity, neither men were involved in the drawing up or enforcement of the "Commissar Order", or had any involvement in the Final Solution or other atrocities, mostly due to the nature of their general staff roles throughout the war. Both men however could have been charged with being members of the General Staff, which was declared to be an illegal and criminal organization.

In terms of a conviction and sentencing, this is quite open to interpretation and speculation. Both men could have been convicted of the first two indictments and membership of a criminal organization, albeit with a little difficulty in certain areas, due to late nature of their promotions and limited role in the conflict as a whole. In the event of such a conviction it is unlikely either of the two would have been hanged, as unlike their colleagues Keitel and Jodl, neither were directly involved in war crimes.

*edit spelling mistake