A crank shaft for a multi-cylinder, short stroke internal combustion engine in which the diameters of the crank pin and of the shaft journal overlap each other, and in which the crank web decreases in thickness approximately from the center of the crank pin with increasing distance from the shaft center. In the crank webs within the region of the crank pin, relief bores are provided the axes of which are inclined with regard to the axis of said shaft journals. The relief bores are designed as blind bores with a flat bottom surface and with a circumferential surface merging with the flat bottom surface along a rounded surface section. The merging portion nearest to the area of the respective pertaining shaft journal is located approximately in the plane perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the crank shaft and approximately in the middle between the crank pin and the shaft journal. With a diameter ratio of the crank pin to the shaft journal of about 0.8, the diameter of the relief bore corresponds to from 0.35 to 0.55 times the diameter of the shaft journal but at a maximum is so great that the overlapping of the respective relief bore with the outer contour of the respective adjacent web is spaced from the shaft axis by a minimum distance of 0.6 times the diameter of the shaft journal and that the respective relief bore is at a minimum spaced from the rounded merging surface section of the crank pin with the respective adjacent web by a distance of approximately 12mm.