The three rings were the symbol for Krupp, based on the radreifen - the seamless railway wheels patented by Alfred Krupp. The rings are currently part of the ThyssenKrupp logotype.

The Krupp family, a prominent 400-year-old German dynasty from Essen, have become famous for their steel production and for their manufacture of ammunition and armaments. Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. Essen (ˈɛsən is a City in the center of the Ruhr Area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Steel is an Alloy consisting mostly of Iron, with a Carbon content between 0 Ammunition, often referred to as ammo, is a generic term derived from the French language la munition which A weapon is a Tool used either in Hunting, or attack or defence in Combat for the purpose of subduing enemy personnel or to destroy enemy weapons The family business, known as Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp in modern times, merged with Thyssen AG in 1999 to form ThyssenKrupp AG, a large industrial conglomerate. A family business is a business in which one or more members of one or more families have a significant ownership interest and significant commitments toward the business’ overall well-being ThyssenKrupp AG ( is a large German industrial conglomerate, with more than 200000 employees A conglomerate is a large Company that consists of seemingly unrelated Business sections

Overview

Friedrich Krupp (1787– 1826) launched the family's metal-based activities, building a small steel foundry in Essen in 1811. Friedrich Krupp ( 17 July 1787 - 8 October 1826) was a German steel manufacturer and founder of the Krupp family commercial Steel is an Alloy consisting mostly of Iron, with a Carbon content between 0 His son Alfred (1812-87), known as "the Cannon King" or as "Alfred the Great", invested heavily in new technology to become a significant manufacturer of railway material and locomotives. The Krupp family, a prominent 400-year-old German dynasty from Essen, have become famous for their Steel production and for their manufacture of He also invested in fluidized hotbed technologies (notably the Bessemer process) and acquired many mines in Germany and France. The Bessemer process was the first inexpensive Industrial process for the mass-production of Steel from molten Pig iron. This article is about the country For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic France topics. He invested in subsidized housing for his workers and started a program of health and retirement benefits. The company began to make steel cannons in the 1840s - especially for the Russian, Turkish, and Prussian armies. Low non-military demand and government subsidy meant that the company specialized more and more in weapons: by the late 1880s the manufacture of armaments represented around 50% of Krupp's total output. When Alfred started with the firm, it had five employees. At his death twenty thousand people worked for Krupp - making it the world's largest industrial company. Generally a company is a form of Business organization. The precise definition varies

In the 20th century the company was headed by Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach (1870-1950), who assumed the surname of Krupp when he married the Krupp heiress, Bertha Krupp. Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, "Taffi" ( August 7, 1870 - January 16, 1950) ran the German Friedrich Krupp AG Bertha Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach ( 29 March 1886 - 21 September 1957) born Bertha Krupp and commonly known by this name outside After Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933, the Krupp works became the center for German rearmament. Hi and welcome to Wikipedia! Please understand that this article is frequently vandalized and vandalism is reverted immediately In 1943, by a special order from Hitler, the company reverted into a family holding, and Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach (1907-67) took over the management. Alfried Felix Alwyn Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach ( August 13, 1907 &ndash July 30, 1967) often referred to as Alfried Krupp, After Germany's defeat, when Gustav proved incapable of going on trial, the Nuremberg Military Tribunal convicted Alfred as a war criminal in the Krupp Trial for his company's use of slave labor. The Subsequent Nuremberg Trials (more formally the Trials of War Criminals before the Nuremberg Military Tribunals) were a series of twelve U War crimes are "violations of the laws or customs of war" including but not limited to "murder the ill-treatment or deportation of civilian residents of an occupied The Krupp Trial (or officially The United States of America vs As a social-economic system slavery is a legal institution under which a Person (called "a slave" is compelled to work for another It sentenced him to 12 years in prison and ordered him to sell 75% of his holdings. In 1951, as the Cold War developed and no buyer came forward, the authorities released him, and in 1953 he resumed control of the firm. Cold War is the state of conflict tension and competition that existed between the United States and the Soviet Union (USSR and their respective allies from the

In 1999, the Krupp Group merged with its largest competitor, Thyssen AG; the combined company — ThyssenKrupp AG, became Germany's fifth-largest firm and one of the largest steel producers in the world. ThyssenKrupp AG ( is a large German industrial conglomerate, with more than 200000 employees

History of the family

Early history

The Krupp family first appeared in the historical record in 1587, when Arndt Krupp joined the merchants' guild in Essen. A guild is an association of craftsmen in a particular trade The earliest guilds were formed as confraternities of workers Arndt, a trader, arrived in town just before an epidemic of plague and became one of the city's wealthiest men by purchasing the property of families who fled the epidemic. The Black Death, or the Black Plague, was one of the deadliest Pandemics in human history widely thought to have been caused by a bacterium named Yersinia After he died in 1624, his son Anton took over the family business; Anton oversaw an extensive gunsmithing operation during the Thirty Years' War (1618-48), beginning the family's long association with weapon manufacturing. For the Mauritanian Thirty Years' War see Char Bouba war. For the band see The 30 Years War.

For the next century the Krupps continued to prosper, generation after generation, becoming Essen's most powerful family and accumulating more and more property in the city. By the mid-eighteenth-century, Friedrich Jodocus Krupp, Arndt's great-great-grandson, headed the Krupp family. In 1751, he married Helene Amalie Ascherfeld (another of Arndt's great-great-grandchildren); Jodocus died six years later, which left his widow to run the business: a family first. The Widow Krupp greatly expanded the family's holdings over the decades, acquiring a mill, shares in four coal mines, and (in 1800) an iron forge located on a stream near Essen.

Friedrich's era

In 1807 the progenitor of the modern Krupp firm, Friedrich Krupp, began his commercial career at age 19 when the Widow Krupp appointed him manager of the forge. Friedrich's father, the widow's son, had died 11 years previously; since that time, the widow had tutored the boy in the ways of commerce, as he seemed the logical family heir. Unfortunately, Friedrich proved too ambitious for his own good, and quickly ran the formerly profitable forge into the ground. The widow soon had to sell it away.

Friedrich continued to squander the family's money. In 1810, the widow died, and in what would prove a disastrous move, left virtually all the Krupp fortune and property to Friedrich. Newly enriched, Friedrich decided to discover the secret of cast (crucible) steel. Benjamin Huntsman, a clockmaker from Sheffield, had pioneered a process to make crucible steel in 1740, but the British had managed to keep it secret since then, forcing others to import steel. Benjamin Huntsman ( 4 June 1704 – 20 June 1776) was an English inventor and manufacturer of Crucible steel. Sheffield ( is a city and Metropolitan borough in South Yorkshire, England But after the Royal Navy began its blockade of Napoleon's empire, British steel became unavailable, and so Napoleon offered a prize of four thousand francs to anyone who could replicate the British process. Napoleon Bonaparte (15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821 was a French military and political leader who had a significant impact on the History of Europe. This prize piqued Friedrich's interest.

Thus, in 1811 Friedrich founded the Krupp Gusstahlfabrik (Cast Steel Works). He soon discovered, however, that he would need a large facility with a power source for success, and so he built a mill and foundry on an Essen stream. Soon Friedrich started pouring huge sums of time and money into the small, waterwheel-powered facility, neglecting all other Krupp business. After much work, Friedrich produced his first smelted steel in 1816.

Alfred's era

Alfred Krupp

Alfred Krupp (born Alfried Felix Alwyn Krupp), son of Friedrich Carl, was born in Essen. Friedrich's death in 1826 left his widow as owner of the works. Alfred had to leave school at the age of fourteen and take on the direction of the works. The prospect seemed a cheerless one. His father had spent a considerable fortune in the attempt to cast steel in large blocks: in order to keep the works going at all, the family had to live in extreme frugality, while the youthful director laboured alongside the workmen by day, and carried on his father's experiments at night. For the next fifteen years, the works made barely enough money to cover the workmen's wages.

In 1841, his invention of the spoon-roller brought in enough money for Alfred to enlarge the factory and spend money on casting steel blocks. In 1847 he made his first cannon of cast steel. At the Great Exhibition of 1851 he exhibited a 6 pounder (2. The Great Exhibition, also known as Crystal Palace, was an international exhibition that was held in Hyde Park, London, England, from 1 7 kg) cannon made entirely from cast steel, and a solid flawless ingot of steel weighing 2000 pounds (907 kg), more than twice as much as any previously cast.

Krupp's exhibit caused a sensation in the engineering world, and the Essen works at once became famous. In 1851, another successful invention, one for the making of railway tyres, made a profit, which Alfred Krupp devoted partly to enlarging and equipping the factory, and partly to his long-cherished scheme - the construction of a breech-loading cannon of cast steel. Krupp himself strongly believed in the superiority of breech-loaders over muzzle-loaders, on account of the greater accuracy of firing and the saving of time, but this view did not win general acceptance in Germany till after the Franco-Prussian war, Krupp supplied his perfected field-pieces throughout Europe and wished to fulfill an order of guns to Austria-Hungary on the eve of the Prusso-Austrian war, much to Bismarck's fury. A breech-loading weapon is a Firearm (a Rifle, a Gun etc in which the Bullet or shell is inserted or loaded at the rear of the A muzzleloader is any Firearm into which the projectile and usually the Propellant charge is loaded from the muzzle of the Gun (i The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War ( 19 July, 1870 — 10 May, 1871 His greatest grievance against the French was that the French high command had refused to purchase his guns despite Napoleon's support. Following the French defeat he did sell them his guns. Once the quality of this product gained recognition, the factory developed very rapidly. At the time of Alfred Krupp's death in 1887 he employed 20,200 men; and including those in works outside Essen, his rule extended over 75,000 people.

A curious incident took place before the Franco-German war. At the time that war was approaching Alfred was in the process of building his palatial new home, for which he needed French granite. Bowing to his demand, both the French and the Prussian monarchs agreed to have a special shipment of granite delivered to him from France despite the mutual trade embargo.

Krupp constructed special "colonies" for the employees and their families - with parks, schools and recreation grounds - while the widows' and orphans' and other benefit schemes insured the men and their families against anxiety in case of illness or death. He tried to control most aspects of his worker's lives: he demanded loyalty oaths, required workers to obtain written permission from their foremen when they needed to stop working to use the toilet, and issued proclamations explicitly telling his workers not to concern themselves with national politics.

A political conservative, Alfred frequently proclaimed he wished to have "a man come and start a counter-revolution" against Jews, socialists and liberals. In some of his odder moods, he considered taking the role himself. According to William Manchester, his great grandson Alfried would interpret these outbursts as a prophecy fulfilled by the coming of Hitler.

Friedrich Alfred's Era

Friedrich Alfred Krupp, 1900.

Workers in 1905.

After Alfred's death in 1887 his only son, Friedrich Alfred, carried on the work. His father had been a hard man, known as "Herr Krupp" since his early teens. His son was "Fritz" all his life, and was strikingly dissimilar to his father in terms of personality. He was a philanthropist, a rare commodity amongst the Ruhr industrial leaders; though part of his philanthropy went towards supporting the study of eugenics. Eugenics is a social Philosophy which advocates the improvement of Human Hereditary traits through various forms of intervention

He did, however, possess an industrial genius, though of a different sort from his father. Fritz was a master of the subtle sell, and cultivated a close rapport with the Kaiser, Wilhelm II. Under Fritz's management, the firm's business blossomed further and further afield, spreading across the globe. It was under him as well that many new products that would do much to change history were authorized. Hiram Maxim peddled his machine gun, and Rudolf Diesel brought his new engine to Krupp to construct. Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim ( February 5, 1840 &ndash November 24, 1916) was an American born Inventor who emigrated to Rudolf Christian Karl Diesel (ˈʁuːdɔlf ˈkʁɪstjan ˈkaʁl ˈdiːzəl March 18, 1858 – last seen alive September 29, 1913) was a Fritz was, therefore, the first to bring Europe diesel engines. The program that eventually resulted in the German U-Boat fleet was also begun during his tenure.

During his lifetime, Fritz married and had two daughters. He also enjoyed living on the island of Capri, where he built a villa and did biological research. Capri ( Italian pronunciation Cápri usual English pronunciation Caprí is an Italian island off the Sorrentine Peninsula, on the south side In 1902 he, and also the painter Christian Wilhelm Allers, were caught up in a pederastic scandal involving youths Fritz had "procured" in Capri and transported to the Bristol hotel in Berlin (after even the corrupt Capri authorities had had enough of his pederasty). Christian Wilhelm Allers ( August 6 1857 &ndash October 19 1915) was a German painter and Printmaker. Pederasty or paederasty refers to an erotic relationship sexually expressed or not between an adolescent boy and an adult male outside his immediate family ^[1] A tumultuous few weeks ensued, which ended in the death of Fritz, ostensibly of a stroke, though suicide is a more probable answer.

Gustav's Era

Upon Fritz's death, his daughter Bertha inherited his empire. It was not thought possible for a woman to run the business, so Kaiser Wilhelm II arranged for Bertha Krupp to marry Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, a courtier and career diplomat. Bertha Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach ( 29 March 1886 - 21 September 1957) born Bertha Krupp and commonly known by this name outside Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, "Taffi" ( August 7, 1870 - January 16, 1950) ran the German Friedrich Krupp AG Bohlen und Halbach took the additional surname "Krupp," which was to be passed to his eldest son but not to the couple's other children. He soon came to identify himself totally with the Krupp firm and its traditions. Gustav led the firm through World War I, which saw it concentrate almost entirely on artillery manufacturing, particularly following the loss of its overseas markets as a result of the Allied blockade. World War I (abbreviated WWI; also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All In 1918 Gustav was named by the Allies as one of the German industrialists to be tried as a war criminal, but these trials never proceeded. War crimes are "violations of the laws or customs of war" including but not limited to "murder the ill-treatment or deportation of civilian residents of an occupied

After the war, the firm was forced to renounce arms manufacturing. Gustav reoriented the Krupp firm to civilian production, under the slogan "Wir machen alles!" (we make everything!). During the French occupation of the Ruhr in 1923, Gustav was imprisoned for resisting French orders, which made him a national hero. During the Weimar Republic, Krupps was deeply involved with the Reichswehr's evasion of the Treaty of Versailles, and engaged in secret arms manufacturing and planning. The term Weimar Republic ( ˈvaɪmarɐ repuˈbliːk is used by historians to signify the democratic and Republican period of Germany from 1919 to 1933 The Reichswehr ( German for "National Defence" formed the military organisation of Germany from 1919 until 1935 when it was The Treaty of Versailles was one of the peace treaties at the end of World War I. Gustav Krupp was initially skeptical towards Nazism and Hitler; bitterly criticising his son Alfried, his future successor for taking up with them. Gustav soon experienced a conversion and became enamoured with the party, to a degree his wife and subordinates found bizarre. Gustav was nonetheless alarmed at Hitler's aggressive foreign policy after the Munich accord but by then he was fast succumbing to senility and was effectively displaced by Alfried. He was indicted at the Nuremberg Trials but never tried, due to his advanced dementia. The Nuremberg Trials were a series of trials most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political military and economic leadership of Nazi Germany after He was thus the only German to be named as a war criminal after both world wars.

Alfried's era

Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach inherited the firm in 1943 when Hitler authorised the transfer of all Bertha's shares to him, and the transfer of executive authority from the ailing Gustav. Alfried Felix Alwyn Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach ( August 13, 1907 &ndash July 30, 1967) often referred to as Alfried Krupp, Like his father, he helped rearm Nazi Germany. He played an increasingly large role in the firm's management, and effectively controlled it for most of the Second World War.

During the Second World War, Krupp, like nearly all other companies in Germany, employed foreign workers from occupied countries. Their total number cannot be calculated due to constant fluctuation, but the highest number at any one time was about 25,000 civilian workers and prisoners of war in January 1943, all of whom worked in Krupp production facilities.

Krupp set up a fusion factory near Auschwitz, but never used it. It was taken over by Union Werl later the same year.

Krupp was tried at the Krupp Trial held after World War II in Nuremberg following the main Nuremberg trials. The Krupp Trial (or officially The United States of America vs World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including The Nuremberg Trials were a series of trials most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political military and economic leadership of Nazi Germany after He and his co-defendants were convicted of using forced labour, but the decision was overturned by John J. McCloy, High Commissioner of the American zone of occupation, who, today, is bitterly criticised for his wholesale quashing of verdicts and sentences of Nazi offenders. John Jay McCloy ( March 31, 1895, Philadelphia Pennsylvania &ndash March 11, 1989, Stamford Connecticut) was a Lawyer

Roles played in important historical events

World War I

The Krupp Gun Works during World War I

Krupp produced most of the artillery of the Imperial German Army, including its big ones: The 1914 42 cm Big Bertha, the 1916 Lange Max, and the seven Paris Guns in 1917 and 1918. Big Bertha (Dicke Bertha literal translation "Fat Bertha" is the name of a type of super-heavy Howitzer developed by the famous armaments manufacturer Langer Max (long Max was a World War I German Cannon officially called 38cm SKL/45. The Paris Gun (Paris-Geschütz was the name of an Artillery piece with which the Germans bombarded Paris during World War I. Year 1917 ( MCMXVII) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year Year 1918 ( MCMXVIII) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common

World War II

During WWII, Krupp produced submarines, tanks, artillery, naval guns, armor plate, munitions and other armaments for the German military. The Krupp-owned Germaniawerft shipyard also produced a part of Germany's WWII U-boats (130 between 1934 and 1945) using preassembled parts supplied by other Krupp factories in a process similar to the construction of the US Liberty ships. U-boat is the anglicized version of the German word, itself an abbreviation of Unterseeboot ( undersea boat) and refers History and service In 1936 the American Merchant Marine Act was passed to subsidize the annual construction of 50 commercial merchant vessels to be used in wartime by In the 1930s, Krupp developed two 80 cm railway guns, the Schwerer Gustav and the Dora. A railway gun, also called railroad gun is a large Artillery piece designed to be placed on Rail tracks. Schwerer Gustav (English Heavy Gustav) and Dora were the names of the German 80 cm K (E Railway guns They were developed in Schwerer Gustav (English Heavy Gustav) and Dora were the names of the German 80 cm K (E Railway guns They were developed in These guns were the largest artillery pieces ever fielded by an army during wartime, and weighed almost 1,344 tons. They could fire a 7-ton shell over a distance of 37 kilometers.

More crucial to the operations of the German military was Krupp's development of the famed 88 mm anti-aircraft cannon, a famously effective weapon that also became a deadly anti-tank weapon and tank gun. The 88 mm gun ( eighty-eight) is a German anti-aircraft and anti-tank Artillery gun from World War II.

The cannon Aron. One of the two guns in the main Oslo coastal fortress that took part in the sinking of Blücher

In April 1940, Krupp was dealt an embarrassing blow when two obsolete 28 cm Krupp guns, installed in the Oscarsborg Fortress in the late 19th century, were responsible for heavily damaging the German cruiser Blücher, leading to her sinking by torpedoes. Oscarsborg Fortress ( Oscarsborg festning) is a coastal fortress in the Oslofjord, close to the small city of Drøbak. Design The Hipper class were built to a design that flouted the Washington Naval Treaty, to which major maritime The Blücher was involved in Operation Weserübung, the German invasion of Denmark and Norway, and was leading the attack on Oslo. Operation Weserübung was the codename for Nazi Germany 's assault on Denmark and Norway during World War II and the opening operation The Kingdom of Denmark ( ˈd̥ænmɑɡ̊ (archaic ˈd̥anmɑːɡ̊ commonly known as Denmark, is a country in the Scandinavian region of northern Europe Norway ( Norwegian: Norge ( Bokmål) or Noreg ( Nynorsk) officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Constitutional (called Christiania from 1624 to 1878 and Kristiania from 1878 to 1924 is the Capital and largest city of Norway. 830 German sailors and soldiers lost their lives in the sinking.

In 1940-41, Krupp's acquired a controlling shareholding in the Bremen-based shipbuilders, Deutsche Schiff- und Maschinenbau AG (Deschimag). Bremen (ˈbʁeːmən is a Hanseatic city in northwestern Germany (official name Stadtgemeinde Bremen / City Municipality of Bremen Deutsche Schiff- und Maschinenbau AG (often abbreviated DeSchiMAG or just Deschimag) was a prominent German Shipbuilding company located in

A huge number of civilians from occupied countries, Allied prisoners of war and jews who had been rounded up in concentration camps such as Auschwitz were used as forced laborers by Krupp during the war. "Auschwitz" redirects here For the town see Oświęcim Auschwitz-Birkenau () was the largest of Nazi Germany The total number of all foreign workers having been employed in Krupp factories cannot be calculated due to a constant fluctuation, but the highest number at a reference date was ca. 25 000 civilian workers and prisoners of war in January 1943.

In an address to the Hitler Youth, Adolf Hitler stated "In our eyes, the German boy of the future must be slim and slender, as fast as a greyhound, tough as leather and hard as Krupp steel. For the SS division with the nickname Hitlerjugend see 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend The Hitler Youth ( German:, Hi and welcome to Wikipedia! Please understand that this article is frequently vandalized and vandalism is reverted immediately " („. . . der deutsche Junge der Zukunft muß schlank und rank sein, flink wie Windhunde, zäh wie Leder und hart wie Kruppstahl. ”)

References