At the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, at that time holding the German women's record for the 100 metres, Krauß won the bronze medal in that event with a time of 11.9 s. She was one of three Olympic medalists that year from Dresdner SC, the others being Rudolf Harbig and Luise Krüger. She was also on the German women's 4 × 100 m relay team that was in the lead but lost due to a dropped baton on the final leg; in the heats the German team had been faster than the Americans, the eventual winners, and beaten the world record with a time of 46.4 s; the American winning time in the final was half a second slower. As national 100-metre champion, Krauß was the fastest runner on the German team, but had run dead heats with Marie Dollinger.