Erich Traub was a German veterinarian, scientist and virologist who specialized in foot-and-mouth disease, Rinderpest and Newcastle disease. Traub was a member of the National Socialist Motor Corps (NSKK), a Nazi motorist corps, from 1938 to 1942. He worked directly for Heinrich Himmler, head of the Schutzstaffel (SS), as the lab chief of the Nazis' leading bio-weapons facility on Riems Island.

Riems is an island in the southwestern part of the Bay of Greifswald, a broad, shallow embayment of the Baltic Sea between the German mainland and the island of Rügen. Riems belongs administratively to the urban district of Greifswald, but is an exclave. Riemserort is municipally part of Riems, but lies opposite the island on the mainland.