The Krupp family is a prominent 400-year-old German dynasty from Essen, noted for its production of steel, artillery, ammunition and other armaments.
The dynasty began in 1587 when trader Arndt Krupp moved to Essen and joined the merchants' guild. He bought and sold real estate, and became one of the city's richest men. His descendants produced small guns during the Thirty Years' War and eventually acquired fulling mills, coal mines and an iron forge. During the Napoleonic Wars, Friedrich Krupp founded the Gusstahlfabrik (cast steel works) and started smelted steel production in 1816. This led to the company becoming a major industrial power and laid the foundation for the steel empire that would come to dominate the world for nearly a century under his son Alfred. The Krupp family business became the arms manufacturer for the Kingdom of Prussia in 1859, and later the German Empire.
Early history The Krupp family first appeared in the historical record in 1587, when Arndt Krupp joined the merchants' guild in Essen. Arndt, a trader, arrived in town just before an outbreak of plague and became one of the city's wealthiest men by purchasing the property of families who fled the epidemic. After he died in 1624, his son Anton took over the family business; Anton oversaw a gunsmithing operation during the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), which was the first instance of the family's long association with arms manufacturing.
For the next century the Krupps continued to acquire property and became involved in municipal politics in Essen. By the mid-18th-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 fulling 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.
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, forcing others to import steel. When Napoleon began his blockade of the British Empire (see Continental System), British steel became unavailable, and Napoleon offered a prize of four thousand francs to anyone who could replicate the British process. This prize piqued Friedrich's interest.
Thus, in 1811 Friedrich founded the Krupp Gussstahlfabrik (Cast Steel Works). He realized he would need a large facility with a power source for success, and so he built a mill and foundry on the Ruhr River, which unfortunately proved an unreliable stream. Friedrich spent a significant amount of time and money in the small, waterwheel-powered facility, neglecting other Krupp business, but in 1816 he was able to produce smelted steel. He died in Essen, 8 October 1826 age 39.
Alfred's era
Alfred Krupp (born Alfried Felix Alwyn Krupp), son of Friedrich Carl, was born in Essen in 1812. His father's death forced him to leave school at the age of fourteen and take on responsibility for the steel works in companionship with his mother Therese Krupp. Prospects were daunting: his father had spent a considerable fortune in the attempt to cast steel in large ingots, and to keep the works going the widow and family lived in extreme frugality. The young director laboured alongside the workmen by day and carried on his father's experiments at night, while occasionally touring Europe trying to promote Krupp products and make sales. It was during a stay in England that young Alfried became enamored of the country and adopted the English spelling of his name.
For years, the works made barely enough money to cover the workmen's wages. Then, in 1841, Alfred's brother Hermann invented the spoon-roller—which Alfred patented, bringing in enough money to enlarge the factory, steel production, and cast steel blocks. In 1847 Krupp made his first cannon of cast steel. At the Great Exhibition (London) of 1851, he exhibited a 6 pounder made entirely from cast steel, and a solid flawless ingot of steel weighing , more than twice as much as any previously cast. He surpassed this with a ingot for the Paris Exposition in 1855. Krupp's exhibits caused a sensation in the engineering world, and the Essen works became famous.
In 1851, another successful innovation, no-weld railway tyres, began the company's primary revenue stream, from sales to railways in the United States. Alfred enlarged the factory and fulfilled his long-cherished scheme to construct a breech-loading cannon of cast steel. He strongly believed in the superiority of breech-loaders, on account of improved accuracy and speed, but this view did not win general acceptance among military officers, who remained loyal to tried-and-true muzzle-loaded bronze cannon. Alfred soon began producing breech loading howitzers, one of which he gifted to the Prussian court.
Indeed, unable to sell his steel cannon, Krupp gave it to the King of Prussia, who used it as a decorative piece. The king's brother Wilhelm, however, realized the significance of the innovation. After he became regent in 1859, Prussia bought its first 312 steel cannon from Krupp, which became the main arms manufacturer for the Prussian military.
Prussia used the advanced technology of Krupp to defeat both Austria and France in the German Wars of Unification. The French high command refused to purchase Krupp guns despite Napoleon III's support. The Franco-Prussian War was in part a contest of "Kruppstahl" versus bronze cannon. The success of German artillery spurred the first international arms race, against Schneider-Creusot in France and Armstrong in England. Krupp was able to sell, alternately, improved artillery and improved steel shielding to countries from Russia to Chile to Thailand (formerly known as Siam).
In the Panic of 1873, Alfred continued to expand, including the purchase of Spanish mines and Dutch shipping, making Krupp the biggest and richest company in Europe but nearly bankrupting it. He was bailed out with a 30 million Mark loan from a consortium of banks arranged by the Prussian State Bank.
In 1878 and 1879 Krupp held competitions known as Völkerschiessen, which were firing demonstrations of cannon for international buyers. These were held in Meppen, at the largest proving ground in the world; privately owned by Krupp. He took on 46 nations as customers. At the time of his death in 1887, he had 75,000 employees, including 20,200 in Essen. In his lifetime, Krupp manufactured a total of 24,576 guns; 10,666 for the German government and 13,910 for export.
Krupp established the Generalregulativ as the firm's basic constitution. The company was a sole proprietorship, inherited by primogeniture, with strict control of workers. Krupp demanded a loyalty oath, required workers to obtain written permission from their foremen when they needed to use the toilet and issued proclamations telling his workers not to concern themselves with national politics. In return, Krupp provided social services that were unusually liberal for the era, including "colonies" with parks, schools and recreation grounds - while the widows' and orphans' and other benefit schemes insured the men and their families in case of illness or death. Essen became a large company town and Krupp became a de facto state within a state, with "Kruppianer" as loyal to the company and the Krupp family as to the nation and the Hohenzollern family. Krupp's paternalist strategy was adopted by Bismarck as government policy, as a preventive against Social Democratic tendencies, and later influenced the development and adoption of Führerprinzip by Adolf Hitler.
The Krupp social services programme began about 1861, when it was found that there were not sufficient houses in the town for firm employees, and the firm began building dwellings. By 1862 ten houses were ready for foremen, and in 1863 the first houses for workingmen were built in Alt Westend. Neu Westend was built in 1871 and 1872. By 1905, 400 houses were provided, many being given rent free to widows of former workers. A cooperative society was founded in 1868 which became the Consum-Anstalt. Profits were divided according to amounts purchased. A boarding house for single men, the Ménage, was started in 1865 with 200 boarders and by 1905 accommodated 1000. Bath houses were provided and employees received free medical services. Accident, life, and sickness insurance societies were formed, and the firm contributed to their support. Technical and manual training schools were provided.
Krupp was also held in high esteem by the kaiser, who dismissed Julius von Verdy du Vernois and his successor Hans von Kaltenborn for rejecting Krupp's design of the C-96 field gun, quipping, "I've canned three War Ministers because of Krupp, and still they don't catch on!"
Krupp's marriage was not a happy one. His wife Bertha (not to be confused with their granddaughter), was unwilling to remain in polluted Essen in Villa Hügel, the mansion which Krupp designed. She spent most of their married years in resorts and spas, with their only child, a son.
Friedrich Alfred's era
After Krupp's death in 1887, his only son, Friedrich Alfred, carried on the work. The father had been a hard man, known as "Herr Krupp" since his early teens. Friedrich Alfred was called "Fritz" all his life, and was strikingly dissimilar to his father in appearance and personality. He was a philanthropist, a rarity amongst Ruhr industrial leaders. Part of his philanthropy supported the study of eugenics. He was particularly interested in promoting the application of genetics to social science and public policy.
Fritz was a skilled businessman, 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. He focused on arms manufacturing, as the US railroad market purchased from its own growing steel industry.
Fritz Krupp authorized many new products that would do much to change history. In 1890 Krupp developed nickel steel, which was hard enough to allow thin battleship armor and cannon using Nobel's improved gunpowder. In 1892, Krupp bought Gruson in a hostile takeover. It became Krupp-Panzer and manufactured armor plate and ships' turrets. In 1893 Rudolf Diesel brought his new engine to Krupp to construct. In 1896 Krupp bought Germaniawerft in Kiel, which became Germany's main warship builder and built the first German U-boat in 1906.
Fritz married Magda and they had two daughters: Bertha (1886–1957) and Barbara (1887–1972); the latter married Tilo Freiherr von Wilmowsky (1878–1966) in 1907.