1. The Krupp family

The Krupp family immigrated from the Netherlands in the second half of the 16th century. The first person known by name in Essen was Arnold or Arndt Krupp (also Krupe). He was a merchant and traded mainly in wine, spices and hardware goods.

The Krupps were among the leading families in the small town of Essen. Although not comparable with patrician families in large cities such as Frankfurt, Cologne or Nuremberg, the Krupp family nevertheless enjoyed considerable wealth. The family members always felt committed to the community and took on several honorary positions in the town, for example as treasurer or mayor.

Trade remained their economic basis, but they were also repeatedly prepared to try new things. Thus, in the 18th century, extensive cross-regional trading activities emerged alongside their local retail ventures.

Women often played a responsible role in the family history, and Helene Amalie Krupp (1732 – 1810) considerably expanded the business. She had fabrics woven and dyed, built a snuff mill and acquired stakes in coal mines. For several years she also owned the ‘Gute Hoffnung’ ironworks in Sterkrade, now Oberhausen.

Helene Amalie’s grandson, Friedrich Krupp, founded the cast steel factory in 1811.

2. Exhibitions in the Small House

In 1955, the ‘Industrieform’ exhibition opened in the Small House, the forerunner of today’s Red Dot Design Museum at the Zollverein UNESCO World Heritage Site (Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex). On the company’s 150th anniversary in 1961, Krupp set up a permanent historical exhibition, soon combined with the product presentation ‘Krupp Today’. The Krupp Historical Archive has been located on the second floor of the Small House since 1961.

The installations of the various exhibitions almost completely concealed the original design of the rooms. The renovation of the Small House in 2005/06 was based on the guiding principle of preserving the existing historical substance and making it visible again. The innate character of the villa now once again emerges. The newly designed ‘Krupp Historical Exhibition’ also refers to this.

2. The founding generation: Friedrich and Therese Krupp

Friedrich Krupp (1787 – 1826) came from a successful and long-established Essen merchant family that can be traced back to the 16th century. Members of the family repeatedly held public office. Friedrich Krupp was also active as a city councillor in Essen.

In 1808 he married Therese Wilhelmi (1790 – 1850), a merchant’s daughter from Essen. Four children were born from the marriage: Ida (1809 – 1882), Alfred (1812 – 1887), Hermann (1814 – 1879) and Friedrich (1820 – 1901).

In 1811 Friedrich Krupp founded a cast steel factory in Essen. The beginnings were not very promising: technical setbacks, sales difficulties, financial hurdles and fragile health hampered his ambitions.

When Friedrich Krupp died in 1826 at the age of just 39, he left his wife and children a heavily indebted company. Therese Krupp nevertheless continued to run the business, supported by relatives and her eldest son Alfred. She remained the formal owner of the company until 1848, when she transferred it to Alfred Krupp.

4. The third generation: Friedrich Alfred and Margarethe Krupp

Friedrich Alfred Krupp (1854 – 1902) took over the company in 1887 during a period of economic prosperity. In terms of character, he was very different from his father. Friedrich Alfred, who was sensitive and suffered from asthma, was mainly interested in the natural sciences, especially oceanography.

As an entrepreneur, Friedrich Alfred Krupp was often underestimated by contemporaries and historians. In fact, he formed Krupp into a company that advanced into new areas of raw material extraction and steel processing. Although he was also a member of the Reichstag for a few years, he avoided the public eye. However, as a prominent entrepreneur, he was in the spotlight of the press throughout his life.

His wife Margarethe Freiin von Ende (1854 – 1931) was an extremely independent, energetic woman who had worked as a governess at the princely court in Dessau.

Her marriage to Friedrich Alfred Krupp in 1882 bore two daughters, Bertha (born 1886) and Barbara (born 1887). Margarethe Krupp possessed artistic talent, and her social commitment extended far beyond the usual.

Following her husband’s death in 1902, Margarethe Krupp assumed her underage daughter Bertha’s rights and duties as heir to the company until Bertha’s marriage. She continued to play a key role in shaping the company’s identity and cohesion in later years.

6. The ‘Germania’ yachts

Regatta sailing has a long tradition at Krupp. Friedrich Alfred Krupp began by having a large racing yacht built at his shipyard in Kiel under the name ‘Kommodore’.

The yacht ‘Germania’ was constructed in 1907/08 according to plans by the Hamburg designer Max Oertz in the Fried. Krupp Germania shipyard in Kiel. The ship was registered with the Imperial Yacht Club of Kiel and, up to 1914, won a total of 76 regatta prizes. At the outbreak of World War I it was confiscated in Cowes, England, and sold to the United States in 1917. The steel hull is now a protected underwater monument off the coast of Florida.

Future generations of the Krupp family were also enthusiastic about sailing: five more yachts named ‘Germania’ followed. Alfried Krupp won an Olympic bronze medal with ‘Germania III’ in 1936. ‘Germania VI’ was built in 1963 as the world’s first all-welded aluminium yacht and is now owned by the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation. It offers young people the opportunity to be trained in offshore and regatta sailing.

Family

Alfried von Bohlen und Halbach met Annelise Lampert in the mid-1930s. They married in 1937 and their son Arndt was born the following year. However, the marriage ended in divorce in 1941, and Arndt grew up separately from his father from then on. Alfried Krupp married Vera Knauer in 1952. The marriage ended after five years.

The fifth generation: Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach

As the eldest child of Gustav and Bertha Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, Alfried (1907 – 1967) received a strict upbringing to become the heir to the company. Throughout his life, the reserved Alfried dutifully carried out this task. He joined the company in 1936 and became its manager and owner in 1943. Since then, he was entitled to prefix the name ‘Krupp’ to his birth name.

After the war, as the sole owner of the Krupp Company, he was tried and sentenced before an American military tribunal but was pardoned in 1951. Alfried Krupp again took over the management of the company in 1953. After the reconstruction period at the end of the 1950s, Fried. Krupp was once again the largest German company for some time.

His only son Arndt renounced his inheritance in 1966. On the death of Alfried Krupp in July 1967, his entire private and corporate assets were transferred to the non-profit Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation which he had established in his will.

Conviction and imprisonment

On 11 April 1945, American troops arrested Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach at Villa Hügel. On 31 July 1948, a US military tribunal in Nuremberg sentenced the head of the company to twelve years’ imprisonment and confiscation of his assets for the ‘systematic plundering’ of occupied territories and ‘inhumane treatment’ of foreign civilian workers and prisoners of war. Krupp was acquitted on the charges of ‘preparing a war of aggression and conspiracy against peace’. Alfried Krupp spent his time in prison in Landsberg am Lech. John Jay McCloy, the US High Commissioner for Germany, pardoned him in 1951 and nullified the confiscation of his assets.

Arndt von Bohlen und Halbach (1938 – 1986)

Arndt was born in Berlin in 1938. As the only son of Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, he was regarded as the heir to the company and from the end of the 1950s also took on representative tasks within the Krupp Company.

With the responsible renunciation of his inheritance in September 1966, he made the subsequent establishment of the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation possible. Arndt von Bohlen died at the young age of 48.

1. Park and gardens of Villa Hügel

Today, Hügelpark is reminiscent of an English landscape garden. However, this impression does not correspond to the original form and function of the gardens around Villa Hügel. What visitors see today is the result of several redesigns.

With the first tree plantings and the creation of ornamental and kitchen gardens, Alfred Krupp arranged the previously barren hilly landscape according to his own ideas. The following generations placed more emphasis on decorative elements. They had exotic shrubs planted, designed the beds in ornamental ways and erected sculptures. Hügelpark became a prestigious showpiece. After 1945, when the Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach family gave up the estate as a residence, buildings and ornamental gardens that had no more use gave way to new green spaces.

The gardens and parks originally served several functions. They allowed the family members living here to retreat and relax. At the same time, the estate was a farm that mainly supplied the extensive household. Together with the villa, the buildings and park nevertheless provided an imposing setting for corporate representation purposes.

3. Aesthetics and amusement

Alfred Krupp was rather sceptical about an emphatically artistic furnishing of his estate. It was not until the following generations between 1887 and 1914 that the gardens and parks were designed with representative and aesthetic aspirations.

Typical of the taste of the late 19th century was the creation of ornamental carpet gardening and the planting of exotic plants, some of which are still preserved today. The precious orchid collection and cultivation was famous far and wide. Cast-iron lanterns as well as Venetian-style stone basins and sculptures enriched the garden landscape. Leisure facilities for the family such as the ‘Sparrow House’, a skating pond and tennis courts were built in the park. The pavilions housed the natural history collections of Friedrich Alfred Krupp.

Friedrich Alfred Krupp had the ‘Sparrow House’, a miniature half-timbered house, built for his daughters Bertha and Barbara in 1894. There, the daughters learned how to run a household through play. The cottage has been preserved to this day and is in the western area of the park, near Villa Hügel.

5. Alfred Krupp’s rules for the Hügel estate, around 1875

‘House rules for the Hügel.
 
For the same reason that no uninvited persons – regardless of their status – are allowed to enter the factory, the Hügel must also remain closed to anyone who has not been invited, because failure to comply with this rule would lead to intolerable situations and because any exception to this rule would be an insult to others.
Officials are therefore prohibited from granting any requests for exceptions.
The above order does not, of course, affect the usual free movement of the Procura and their families, as well as persons employed here in an official capacity.

Alfred Krupp.’

The Krupp family took great care to protect their privacy at Hügel. Despite numerous requests from all sections of the population, only a few visitors enjoyed the privilege of being able to visit, mostly notable people from politics and business.

2. The homes of the Krupp family

From the urban residential and commercial building to the modest overseer’s house to the monumental Villa Hügel: the success of the family business is also reflected in the various residential buildings.

The first residential building they lived in until 1824, was in Flachsmarkt 178 in Essen. Alfred Krupp was born in this Krupp family home in the town centre in 1812.

For financial reasons, the family moved into the small overseer’s house on the factory grounds outside the town in 1824. In this second residential building, the so-called ‘Stammhaus’, they lived from1824 to 1844.

In 1844, Alfred Krupp built a larger residence for his family between the ‘Stammhaus’ and the smelter building. They lived in this third residential building from 1844 to 1861.

The fourth residential building, the ‘Garden House’, only served as a residence from 1861 to 1864, as it was located in the immediate vicinity of the ‘Fritz’ steam hammer.

In 1864, Alfred Krupp acquired the Klosterbuschhof. The family lived on this estate above the Ruhr from 1864 until Villa Hügel was completed in 1873.

4. Comfort and safety

The foundation stone of Villa Hügel was laid in April 1870 and the topping-out ceremony was celebrated in November 1870. The interior was completed in the summer of 1872 and the family moved in in January 1873.

The villa has 399 rooms, 11,100 square metres of living and usable space and is located in an area that originally covered more than 150 hectares. The construction costs amounted to approximately 5.7 million marks, around a quarter of the company’s profits during the construction period.

The new home was to offer family and guests the best possible comfort, always fresh air and modern hygiene facilities.

China Room

The design for a Chinese-style room was executed in the basement of the Main House. Parts of the furnishings have been preserved to this day.
 
The furnishing company, which has been in existence since 1780 and continues to this day, supplied furniture, wood panelling and parquet flooring for Villa Hügel on several occasions.

7. Hügel as a business enterprise

Until 1945, Hügel was not exclusively a private residential area, but a business in its own right, a small ‘town within a town’. Around 1900, the estate administration was divided into the areas of ‘general administration, building office, housekeeping, farm stables, gardening, economy, forestry and hunting administration’.

The villa stood in the centre of the Hügel estate. It was surrounded by farm buildings, leisure facilities for the Krupp family and apartments for staff.

The gas and waterworks, a restaurant and a boathouse were located on the Ruhr. Hügel gained a railroad station in 1890. A telegraph station, a telephone system and a post office already existed long before 1900. The Krupp housing estate ‘Am Brandenbusch’ was built to the north. Around 1920, around 140 buildings belonged to the estate.

Most of the residential and farm buildings were demolished in the 1950s. The terraced garden at the villa and various park areas were given a new design.

1. The Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation as owner of the company

The non-profit Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation is the legacy of Dr.-Ing. E. h. Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, the last personal owner of the company Fried. Krupp. In his will, he appointed the Foundation as the sole heir to his entire private and corporate assets, which was transferred to the Foundation he had established upon his death on 30 July 1967. This was made possible by his son Arndt’s renunciation of his inheritance.

Today, the Foundation is the largest single shareholder of thyssenkrupp AG.

3. Setting the course until the mid-1970s

When it was established, the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation was the sole owner of the Fried. Krupp GmbH. Berthold Beitz was Chairman of the Foundation’s Board of Trustees from the very beginning and has also been Chairman of the company’s Supervisory Board since 1970.

An expansion of the capital base was of central importance for the stable further development of the company. This was the only way to finance forward-looking investments and keep the company competitive on the global markets. In personal talks with Shah Reza Pahlewi, Berthold Beitz succeeded in gaining the state of Iran as a new shareholder. Iran took over a quarter of the share capital of Fried. Krupp Hüttenwerke AG and Fried. Krupp GmbH.

At the same time, Beitz continued to expand the company’s international contacts and business relationships. In the summer of 1973, he led an economic delegation from the Federal Republic of Germany to China for informational talks and to explore opportunities for German industry there.

The idea behind the Foundation

As early as the beginning of the 1960s, Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach considered transforming the Krupp company into a corporation and transferring his private and company assets to a charitable foundation after his death.
 
His aim was to fully preserve the substance of the company and to ensure that the commitment to the public interest practised by the Krupp family until then would be immediately taken up and continued. 

Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach‘s legacy

On 23 September 1966 – three days after his son Arndt renounced his inheritance – Alfried Krupp had his last will and testament recorded. At the Krupp anniversary celebration on 1 April 1967 at Villa Hügel, he announced to the public:
 
‘[…] the company is to be transformed, via a foundation, into a corporation, which shall be an expression of the tradition of the House of Krupp for commitment to common welfare.’

The founding of the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation

The Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation begins its activity on 1 January 1968.
 
It is the sole heir to the complete private fortune of Alfried Krupp and was the sole owner of the company Fried. Krupp GmbH.

1. Birth of a myth: the beginnings of the company Fried. Krupp (1811 – 1850)

On 20 November 1811, Friedrich Krupp and two partners founded a factory to produce cast steel in Essen. The product, which was highly modern at the time, was expected to generate profitable business and, notably, social prestige.

Cast steel – or more precisely crucible steel – was an English invention. On the European mainland, Friedrich Krupp was one of the first to rediscover the ‘secret’ of the smelting process and produce high-quality cast steel. And he succeeded. Technically he was successful, commercially he failed and accumulated debts. In 1816, he finally parted company with various business partners. After his early death in 1826, his wife Therese and his eldest son Alfred continued the business.

3. Friedrich Krupp’s first ‘factories’ in Essen

The first smelting trials took place in 1811 in a rented house on what is now Gerswidastrasse in the centre of Essen. Krupp built the first smelting works in 1812 in Altenessen to the north on the fulling mill on the Berne River, which supplied the energy to drive a hammer mill. In 1818/19, a second factory was added on today’s Altendorfer Strasse, which became the main site.

The factory production of cast steel was a first, tentative step towards the industrialisation of the region. A few decades later, coal mines, blast furnaces, steelworks and other industrial plants transformed the agrarian Ruhr region into an industrial conurbation of unimagined dimensions.

To the west of the city of Essen, on the road leading to Mülheim, Friedrich Krupp constructed a new ‘steel factory’ in 1818/19. This nucleus was to develop into one of the largest factories in Europe.

The expectations for the first site were not fulfilled, as the transport connections were unfavourable, the Berne River often carried too little water, and the facility could not be expanded.

5. Cast steel: the secret of success

The history of the Krupp company and the Ruhr region is also the history of steel production. Steel refers to technically usable iron that contains less than two per cent carbon and can be formed by rolling, pressing and forging.

To produce cast steel, steel was melted down again in crucibles, which changed its properties.
Cast or crucible steel was characterised by its purity, hardness and toughness. Krupp’s cast steel combined homogeneity with a special depth of hardness and elasticity. For Alfred Krupp, the quality of his products was of utmost importance: ‘Working ordinarily is against my principle’.

The crucibles are made of clay and graphite. They are filled with pieces of steel mixed with smaller amounts of additives such as iron and ‘fluxes’.

The crucibles are heated with the molten material in ovens. The melting process in the crucible transforms the properties of the steel, in particular its hardness and homogeneity.

At the end of the melting process, workers carefully remove the red-hot crucibles from the furnaces using tongs.

The crucibles are carried to prepared moulds into which the molten cast steel is poured. The resulting cast steel ingots are consequently further processed.

7. Rollers: an early success story

Krupp’s products faced fierce competition, especially with imports from England. In the early 1830s, however, Alfred Krupp succeeded in developing heavy-duty, precisely machined rollers and rolling mills that were in demand from mints and craft businesses.

The forged and hardened rollers made of cast steel were the company’s dominant product in the 1830s and 1840s and gradually created a solid economic foundation. Alfred Krupp boosted business by visiting customers at home and abroad, but also through intensive advertising via brochures and adverts: ‘I guarantee every roller as if I worked and hardened it myself’.

1. The leap to the top: the global Krupp company (1850 – 1887)

Mid-19th century: the industrial revolution changed the country. Railroad construction opened new and profitable markets for Alfred Krupp. Springs, axles, wheels and rails: the company had been manufacturing railroad material since 1847. A few years later, Krupp succeeded in another new development: cannons made of cast steel.

Alfred Krupp’s strategy was uncompromisingly focused on growth. Far more than his competitors, he reinvested the company’s profits in new machines and halls as well as the acquisition of ore mines and coal mines. This expansion strategy almost led to the collapse of the company in the early 1870s when the ‘Gründerzeit crisis’ shook the economy. Numerous companies went bankrupt or suffered from weak demand.

At world exhibitions, Krupp demonstrated the quality of his steel products with spectacular displays, and quality remained the highest benchmark. He tied the growing workforce to his company through social facilities and attractive wages.

3. Colossus of technology: the ‘Fritz’ steam hammer

One building block of the company’s success was the production of huge homogeneous cast steel blocks. If large crankshafts, axles or similar products were to be forged from it, a heavy hammer was needed. The first steam-driven tilt hammers had a drop weight of 3.5 to 7 tons.

Between 1859 and 1861, Alfred Krupp designed a large hammer with a drop weight of thirty tons, and later fifty tons. This hammer, named ‘Fritz’ after his son, was in operation until 1911.

Cast steel ingots were forged out from underneath the tilt hammers with their characteristic hammer handles.

A key feature of the new large hammer was the absence of the hammer handle. Power transmission was now exclusively vertical: the hammer head – the ‘drop piece’ – was pulled up by the piston of the steam cylinder. When the cylinder opened and the steam escaped, the hammer fell onto the workpiece.

5. Success factor: advertising

Alfred Krupp planned advertising and public relations earlier and with more foresight than many of his contemporaries. The company was represented at all major exhibitions in the 19th century: in Chicago, London, Paris, Vienna and elsewhere.

In 1875, Krupp submitted the factory logo he had chosen himself, the ‘Three Rings’, to the authorities for registration as a trademark. The three superimposed rings are interpreted as railroad tires.

Alfred Krupp was also one of the first entrepreneurs to recognise the importance of photography for public relations. He set up his own ‘Photographic Institute’ in 1861. The elaborate, technically brilliant photographs taken there of the cast steel factory and its products provided business partners with impressive images of the efficiency and expansion of the Krupp factory.

The depiction was designed in three languages and was intended to give customers an impression of the Essen-based company’s progressiveness.

The negative of the photograph has been preserved as a glass plate (right). Its size shows that Krupp used a ‘high-tech product’ of the time. Hugo van Werden (1836 – 1911) joined the company in 1854 and managed the company’s photographic institute from 1861. His photographs influenced the ‘Krupp image’ for decades.

Alfred Krupp quotes

‘The purpose of work should be the common good, then work brings blessings, then work is prayer.’

 ‘My impatience is a crocodile – it can’t be tamed.’

‘The overriding principle is to keep in mind the goal that the company must always achieve the most excellent and perfect possible in its production.’

‘The university auditorium, where I received my education, was the smelter and my catheter was the anvil.’

‘Everything that is not reliable, hard-working, solid, moral and loyal should be eradicated at an early stage, regardless of position.’

‘I wish that peace and harmony between the denominations will prevail at all plants of the cast steel factory into the distant future.’

‘Like a stag after fresh water, I cry out for regulations!’

‘If you work, you make mistakes… If you work a lot, you make more mistakes.

Only those who sit back and do nothing need make no mistakes.’

‘Starting small, persevering through difficulties, striving for greatness.’

‘I therefore recommend the utmost caution in controlling the behaviour of workers and foremen and to expel immediately anyone who makes any pretence of joining any association hostile to employer capital.’

‘Above all, my goal is to serve the state with all my strength.’

‘The expansion of the business must not be hindered but forced. I will provide the necessary means.’

‘Mutual loyalty has made the factory so great.’

‘I therefore wish to introduce this photography of all workers forever

and a much stricter control over the people, their past, their activities and their lives.’

‘We only want loyal workers …

we want to treat them with all human kindness and care for them as for their families, they should earn the maximum from us that an industry can offer…

On the other hand, no one should dare to revolt against a benevolent regime,

everything should rather be blown up or completely sacrificed than give in to workers’ demands under the pressure of a strike.’

‘The faithful good people will be protected with favour and sacrifice even in bad times – the bad ones, who cannot count on compassion, will be removed at the next opportunity.’

‘Every good and capable man is welcome in our association, regardless of his homeland or faith, and has an equal claim to protection and recognition.’

‘Working ordinarily is against my inclination.’

‘Nothing remains of me afterward but letters, notes in pencil, often very badly and illegibly written.’

1. ‘Beyond Essen’: the corporate policy of Friedrich Alfred Krupp (1887 – 1902)

Under the management of Friedrich Alfred Krupp, successor to his father Alfred since 1887, the company again entered new dimensions. With the construction of a steelworks in Rheinhausen, Krupp now also became one of the leading European producers of pig iron and crude steel. The Gruson plant in Magdeburg and the Germania shipyard in Kiel were acquired. The idea behind this was to build a company that integrated all areas of the value chain, from the extraction of raw materials to the product.

There were also new approaches in the field of company social policy: a company library, an educational association, settlements for pensioners and more besides.

Friedrich Alfred Krupp died in November 1902, aged just 48. The company remained in family hands thereafter, although formally as a public limited company since 1903.

3. The Gruson plant in Magdeburg

The Magdeburg facility was founded by the industrialist Hermann Gruson (1821 – 1895) in 1855. The company’s global reputation was based on mechanical engineering and a special hard iron casting. Thanks to its surface hardness, this was particularly suitable for processing into rollers, mills and other crushing machines.

Chilled cast iron shells, cannon and armour for land and coastal fortifications were also extremely successful. Krupp was also partially active in these production areas, but two German factories – according to Friedrich Alfred Krupp – were unable to find sufficient sales on the world market. In 1893, Krupp bought the competitor for 24 million marks and coordinated production between Magdeburg and Essen.

5. Research and quality assurance

Friedrich Alfred Krupp, himself highly interested in science, significantly expanded the company’s internal research, which later led to the discovery of new steel alloys such as nickel steel and the stainless steel of the ‘Nirosta’ brand.

In 1883, on his initiative, a second laboratory was built alongside the existing one, which ten years later was expanded into the ‘Chemical-Physical Research Institute’ and became a centre of international iron and steel research. Raw materials, metals and workpieces underwent extensive testing to maintain and further improve the high quality of Krupp products. Bending tests and load tests document the load-bearing capacity of Krupp steel.

1. The Krupp social system: ‘The purpose of work should be the common good’

Alfred Krupp outlined his entrepreneurial philosophy with this motto in 1873. Krupp’s corporate social policy began very early on and went far beyond what other companies were doing.
Krupp wanted to combat the social misery in the wake of industrialisation by offering comprehensive social benefits – from housing to relief funds, schools and grocery shops to facilities for organising free time ‘after the shift’.

This commitment corresponded to his social sensibilities but also had very practical motives: he wanted to prevent revolutionary unrest and retain a qualified, efficient core workforce at the company. Those who enjoyed company social benefits had to submit to Krupp’s strict system of discipline and control in return.

3. Support for the elderly and sick

As early as 1813, Friedrich Krupp paid wages to sick workers and settled their medical bills despite difficult economic conditions.

In 1836 he set up a provident fund for cases of illness and death. Joining was still voluntary. In 1853/55, compulsory membership and the addition of a pension fund were added. The company’s own military hospital was established in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71 and was the origin of today’s Alfried Krupp Hospital.

Company provident funds therefore existed far earlier than the state social insurance introduced in 1881. However, only employees received benefits. Anyone who left the company lost all entitlements.

Since the 1870s, the company had supported the wealth accumulation of its employees. Among other advances it opened a savings office in 1900, which passed on the employees’ savings deposits to the local savings bank, but paid a surcharge on top of their interest.

The barrack hospital set up for wounded soldiers of the Franco-Prussian War became the company hospital in 1872.

The company’s own dental clinic was opened in 1903. After World War II it was integrated into the Krupp hospitals.

5. The Krupp’sche Konsumanstalt (Krupp Consumer Institute)

Ten years later, Krupp took over an existing consumer cooperative. A network of sales outlets was then established in Essen and at the so-called external factories of the Krupp company.

Employees were able to buy food, coal and everyday necessities at reasonable prices at the consumer institute. Bakeries, butchers, coffee distilleries and other businesses were attached.

Since the 1950s, general purchasing behaviour has changed. As with many other consumer cooperatives in the region, the Krupp Consumer Institute was no longer able to compete with the newly emerging retail chains and supermarkets. It was absorbed into the Coop Group in 1974.

The head office was located on Ostfeldstrasse in Essen and had been the central point of sale for food, clothing, textiles and furniture since 1874.

1. Krupp in World War I (1914 – 1918)

For historians, the ‘long’ 19th century ended with World War I.
This was also a deep cut for Krupp: therefore, the influence of national and international politics on the company’s development grew.

World War I broke out at the beginning of August 1914. Krupp’s experience and efficiency became increasingly important for German armaments production. Within two years the company had largely converted its facilities to the production of guns, ammunition and other armaments. Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach viewed the war with concern but considered German policy to be justified.

The number of employees increased considerably, many women and prisoners of war were deployed. The ‘Hindenburg Programme’, an armaments plan drawn up by the government in 1916, led to the construction of extensive new factory facilities.

By the end of World War I in 1918, around ten million people had died in Europe. Almost all countries had profound economic problems to overcome. Krupp was facing considerable difficulties: the Versailles Peace Treaty provided for the destruction of numerous factories and machines and almost completely banned future armaments production.

3. Rearmament in Europe

Efficient defence companies were regarded as national flagships. The Krupp company for Germany was what Vickers or Armstrong Whitworth were for Great Britain, Schneider-Creusot for France and Škoda for Austria-Hungary.

Krupp’s strengths lay in the manufacture of armour plates and guns. The company enjoyed a high reputation worldwide, especially for heavy calibres. Before the war, a third of armaments production went abroad, with the navy being the main domestic customer.

With the outbreak of war in 1914, armaments companies in all countries began to adapt their production to the growing demands of the military – including Krupp. World War I reached unprecedented dimensions in terms of the ‘use of people’ and material. Industrialised warfare had begun.

5. Material battles

The enormous consumption of war equipment on all fronts steadily increased demand. Krupp also increased the output of cannons, grenades, ships and submarines. Sales of military equipment increased eightfold within four years.

New armour products were also developed in the process. A steel breastplate manufactured by Krupp was intended to protect German soldiers in the trenches against enemy fire. The ‘Paris gun’ deployed in 1918, on the other hand, was an offensive weapon that was primarily aimed at the French capital. The long-range gun could fire shells over more than 120 kilometres. However, it was more important for propaganda than for military purposes on the German side.

The ‘Sappenpanzer’ (breastplate) for the infantry was developed from 1917 onwards by Fried. Krupp AG in large numbers.

Built at the Germania shipyard in Kiel, the submarine ‘Deutschland’ made two spectacular voyages to America at the beginning of the war. It transported mail to the United States, and on its way back was loaded with raw rubber, nickel, tin and other metals important to the German war economy.

7. Work in times of war

The shortage of labour due to the conscription of men fit for military service led to a sharp increase in female employment – also at Krupp. For the first time ever, women were now standing at the workbenches. Their share eventually rose to almost a quarter of all employees in the cast steel factory, and they were the first to be released after the end of the war.

Foreign workers made up a relatively small proportion of the workforce. In November 1918, 8,569 foreigners were working in the Krupp factories in Essen, including 464 prisoners of war and civilian internees.

In September 1916, politicians demanded that German industry triple its production of war material as part of the ‘Hindenburg programme’. The new construction and conversion measures at Krupp were so extensive that they had not yet been completed by the end of the war.

9. The end of the war

The military inferiority of the German Reich and its allies became increasingly apparent in 1918. During this phase, Emperor Wilhelm II visited the Essen cast steel factory in September 1918. Once again, he aimed to mobilise the population and stabilise the empire.

To this end, he sought to close ranks with the working class – one last time and in vain. Only a short time later, on 9 November 1918, he was forced to abdicate. Germany accepted the armistice in Compiègne, France on 11 November.

At the end of the war, Krupp also had to mourn numerous casualties. Gustav Krupp had a hall of honour built by the sculptor Joseph Enseling in 1926. The memorial plaques list the names of 2,841 fallen factory employees.

2. Disarmament and occupation of the Ruhr region

The Versailles Peace Treaty of 1919 stipulated a targeted disarmament of Germany. Under Allied supervision, around 10,000 machines were rendered unusable at Krupp between 1919 and 1925, which was almost every second machine in the Essen factories.

In January 1923, French and Belgian troops occupied the Ruhr region – on the grounds that Germany had not fully paid its reparations. Krupp found itself at the centre of the ‘Ruhrkampf’.

When numerous Krupp workers protested the confiscation of trucks on the factory premises on 31 March 1923, the French soldiers felt threatened and shot 13 demonstrators. Gustav Krupp, three directors and a works council member were sentenced by a French military court as alleged instigators of the riot.
Gustav Krupp received 15 years imprisonment. Seven months later, the detainees were prematurely released.

Passive resistance to the occupation of the Ruhr was to be supported by a poster campaign by the ‘Reichszentrale für den Heimatschutz’ (Reich Central Office for Home Defence). Marianne, a symbol of France, makes a bloodthirsty and violent attack on the Ruhr region.

4. Unemployment and a shortage economy

Loss of wealth and unemployment were among the defining experiences for many people during the Weimar period. Pensioners, retirees, the unemployed, widows and war orphans sometimes lived on the edge of subsistence.

The supply situation was particularly critical during the inflation. Krupp tried to alleviate the hardship – also with the help of a company retail store. However, Krupp was unable to influence the general economic situation. Massive economic slumps alternated with brief phases of recovery. This is also reflected in the ups and downs of the Krupp Company workforce.

Economic fluctuations repeatedly led to phases of unemployment, even among long-serving Krupp workers. August M., who joined the cast steel factory in 1911 at the age of fourteen, first lost his job for ten months in 1926 due to a ‘lack of work’.
In 1928 he was one of those locked out during the ‘Ruhreisenstreit’ (Ruhr iron dispute). In 1932, during the Great Depression, the company once again dismissed him for two months.

6. New products

In addition to traditional steel products from the rolling mill, forge and foundry, Krupp had been planning to manufacture other ‘civilian’ products instead of armaments since 1919. In a competition in which almost 900 Krupp workers took part, the company asked for suggestions.

When reorganising production, the aim was to draw on the capabilities of skilled workers and make new use of existing operations: the former cannon workshop, for example, became a motor vehicle construction plant.

All of this was initially not very profitable. However, locomotives, agricultural equipment, trucks and large excavators prevailed on the market in the long term. Motor scooters, cinema projectors, locks and textile machines, on the other hand, were removed from the company’s product range after a short time.

Steel remained the company’s most important mainstay. Innovations such as stainless steel with brands such as ‘Nirosta’ and ‘V2A’ or products made of Widia carbide were sold worldwide.

Krupp began building locomotives in 1919 in the former gun carriage and brake cylinder workshops in Essen. The first locomotive was decorated with nameplates of the individual Krupp factories.

From 1919 Krupp produced small trucks. In the following years, larger trucks, buses and vehicles for city cleaning were added.

The first scooter built in Germany was only produced for four years, from 1919 to 1923.

The corrosion-resistant chrome-nickel steel ‘Nirosta’, invented by Krupp in 1912, was used in many sectors. One of the most conspicuous examples is the roof of the Chrysler Building completed in 1929.

1. Politics

Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach was influenced by the values of the German Empire and had a conservative national mindset. He was loyal to the Weimar Republic but kept an inner distance and did not defend democracy against its enemies.

Before 1933, he had opposed the NSDAP. This changed rapidly after Hitler became chancellor: Krupp welcomed the economic stabilisation, the military build-up, and the strengthening of Germany’s foreign policy. The company benefited from government contracts, also in the field of armaments. Despite the undeniable terror, Krupp adapted to the Nazi state, supported it, and was taken over by Hitler for propaganda purposes. Hitler visited the company ten times, including four visits to Villa Hügel.

Krupp supported the regime and became part of the system and its crimes. Individual tensions with those in power did not change this fact. For example, Hitler prevented Carl Goerdeler, who was critical of the government, from being appointed to the board of directors of Krupp. After the assassination attempt on 20 July 1944, the Gestapo took Krupp’s brother-in-law and friend Tilo von Wilmowsky to a concentration camp. He had been in personal contact with members of the bourgeois-conservative opposition.

3. Forced labour

In the Nazi state between 1939 and 1945, an estimated 13.5 million foreigners worked – mostly because they were forced to – in German companies to keep the war economy going.

At Krupp, more than 100,000 forced labourers were exploited in total, among them thousands of prisoners of war and Jewish concentration camp inmates. At times, up to 40% of the workforce were forced labourers. The vast majority came from the then Soviet Union. Many were very young, and about a quarter were women and girls. Jewish men and women, as well as so-called Eastern workers, suffered particularly from the brutal, sometimes inhumane working and living conditions, as well as the many forms of repression imposed by the Nazis’ racial ideology.

Among other crimes, Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach as well as leading managers of the Krupp company were convicted of the crime of forced labour in one of the Nuremberg Trials in 1948.

In 1959, Krupp was one of the first companies to pay reparations totalling 10 million DM to former Jewish forced labourers. In 1998, the company was one of the founding members of the ‘Foundation Initiative of the German Industry’ which aims to compensate the surviving former forced labourers.

The corporation during the era of National Socialism (1933 – 1945)

The actions of the Krupp company and its owners during the Third Reich raise fundamental questions about the relationship between politics and business: How does an industrial corporation position itself towards a criminal regime? What do business ethics mean in the context of a totalitarian state?

The Krupp company benefited greatly from the economic boom and the Nazi rearmament policy. During World War II, the company employed more than 100,000 forced labourers, often in inhumane conditions. The company exploited factories in the occupied territories and served as a vital part of the wartime economy. To this day, many see the company as the ‘Reich’s armoury’.

The state bureaucracy partly determined what was produced as well as how and where it was produced. The Nazi regime restricted entrepreneurial freedom. Historians still disagree on the exact extent of the regime’s influence. In all instances of distance and conflict, Krupp shared the responsibility for the functioning of the Nazi state and the violence and crimes it committed. The family ignored this, often losing its moral bearings and betraying the very values it had always held dear: social responsibility and decency.

New goals, new paths (1945 – 1967)

The situation after the end of the war seemed hopeless: the entire company was subordinated to the Allied victorious powers, 70% of the Essen plant was affected by war damage or dismantling, the Germania shipyard was destroyed, and the Gruson and Bertha plants were under the influence of the Soviet Union. The Allies hived off the mines and smelting works from the company. Other factories were separated and were only able to resume production in isolated cases.

Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, who as company owner had been sentenced by a US military tribunal in 1948, did not return to the executive management of the company until 1953 after his pardon. Significantly shaped by Alfried Krupp’s newly appointed personal chief representative, Berthold Beitz, the company expanded its production programme and particularly strengthened the industrial plant sector. For a time, Krupp was once again the largest German company. However, financing difficulties began to emerge in the 1960s. Krupp was also caught up in the maelstrom of a general economic crisis.
 
Alfried Krupp died in July 1967. The non-profit Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation established by him became the new sole owner of the Krupp company.

2. Participation of the State of Iran

In 1974, Krupp concluded a long-term cooperation agreement with the State of Iran. A quarter of the share capital of Fried. Krupp Hüttenwerke AG was transferred to National Iranian Steel Industries Co.

In October 1976, Berthold Beitz reached an agreement with the Persian Shah Reza Pahlewi: Iran gradually took over 25.01% of the share capital of Fried. Krupp GmbH, and the political upheavals in Iran in 1979 had no impact on this.

The oil state’s investment in the long-established German company also attracted international attention. It brought Krupp important funds to finance necessary restructuring and modernisation.

As a result of the company mergers, Iran’s shareholding has fallen significantly since 1991. Since 2003, IFIC Holding AG has held less than 5% of the shares of thyssenkrupp AG.

4. The takeover of Hoesch AG

The ever-increasing international competition on the steel market increased the pressure to reduce capacities and specialise in high-quality, profitable products.

Krupp therefore sought to take over Hoesch AG in Dortmund, around 70% of which was active in related business areas.

In December 1991 Krupp acquired the majority of Hoesch shares. One year later, the merger of the two companies’ to form Fried. Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp was concluded.

1. The historic company headquarters

The Krupp company was founded in Essen, where it was also headquartered until 1999. The central administration buildings were in the middle of the factory facilities. Initially, the so-called ‘Stammhaus’, where the Krupp family lived, also served as an office building. Later, the growing company erected specific buildings for administration. In 1874, the ‘main comptoir’ was no longer sufficient. Not far from there, a larger but equally simple functional building was constructed to serve as headquarters.

Between 1908 and 1911, a prestigious new building was constructed on Altendorfer Strasse based on designs by the company’s own architect Robert Schmohl: the 60-metre high ‘Turmhaus’ (Tower House) shaped the Essen city skyline. Another new building was constructed in 1939. A bridge connected it to the Tower House on the opposite side of the street.