Krupp

Krupp, family that formerly owned and operated steel and armament plants in Germany's industrial Ruhr region. As arms manufacturers the Krupps provided crucial support for Prussia's and Germany's military ventures in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Founded in 1811, the firm rose to prominence under Alfried Krupp (1812-1887), who in 1851 produced a cannon of pure steel at his factory in Essen. Krupp, who soon became known as the Cannon King, acquired a virtual monopoly on supplying Prussia with arms. At the same time the firm benefited from the expanding railroad construction; a weldless steel railroad wheel that the Krupp factory turned out proved especially profitable.

After the unification of Germany in 1871, the firm became the chief arms supplier of the German Empire, often keeping ahead of the military in the development of new weapons. The best-known Krupp cannon was “Big Bertha” of World War I fame, which hurled one-ton shells a distance of more than 15 km (9 mi).

By then the firm had passed first to Friedrich Krupp (1854-1902) and then, after his apparent suicide over a sex scandal, to his daughter Bertha (1886-1957), although her husband, Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach (1870-1950), actually ran the operation. Under Friedrich, an exceptionally skillful businessman, the house of Krupp extended its dealings all over the world. The accelerating naval armaments race of the pre-World War I period proved a special boon to the firm. Krupp also became known for its beneficent social policies, providing low-cost housing and food, financial aid, and a pension fund for its workers.

After World War I the firm concentrated on nonmilitary production, from railroad equipment to stainless-steel dentures. Secretly, however, it also manufactured weapons that were banned by the disarmament provisions of the Versailles peace treaty, and it developed new ones against the day when Germany could once again become a military power.

The firm participated wholeheartedly in Adolf Hitler's rearmament drive in the 1930s. During World War II some 70,000 forced laborers and concentration camp inmates toiled for Krupp under inhuman conditions. The firm even set up a concentration camp for the children of these laborers. Alfred Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach (1907-1967), the son of Gustav and Bertha, ran the firm during the war; after the defeat of Nazi Germany, he was sentenced by the Allies to 12 years' imprisonment as a war criminal but was released in 1951. The concern was then returned to the family, which retained control of it until 1968, when it became a corporation.