The Incredible Krupps: the rise, fall and comeback of Germany’s industrial
family (1961, English version 1969) is the history of a German family’s armament
business spanning 380 years from 1587 to 1959. They made steel products,
elevators (lifts), and munitions – mortars and cannons – ‘tools of peace and
tools of war.’
It began with Arndt Krupp, a refugee, who moved to Essen, Germany – from
where no-one knows. The first 200 years is covered with great speed, as the
reader is fast-forwarded to 1811. In 1811 Friedrich Krupp established the House
of Krupp, the ‘real’ beginning of the Kruppdom. He became known as the Cannon
King – but he died at the age of 39.
From 1860 the seriously hard-working dictatorial Alfred Krupp established a
vertical and horizontal mangagement structure, with rules and regulations for
his workers. He believed that the ‘smell of horse manure stimulated creative
thinking.’ From the description of him, he sounds like the prototype of Mr.
Burns of the animation television program The Simpsons.
The book describes the creation of Big Bertha, the howitzer cannon used in
both World War I and World War II. After the Versailles Peace Treaty in 1918
ending World War I, Krupp was no longer permitted to produce ‘tools of war’ so
the company began looking for new investments until the advent of World War II.
The WWII years under the Hitler regime, and the Krupps involvment in warfare,
are macabre and horrendous, although well-described.
The biography explains Gustav Krupp’s endeavour during World War II to keep
the business from falling into the hands of the German government as he applied
to legalise the firm as a ‘permanent hereditary family monarchy.’
The post-war years are interesting. The war left the business literally and
financially in ruins. The book tells of family deaths, arrests, and the
Nuremberg trial in which Krupp was tried, not for crimes against humanity, but
for crimes against peace.
The diligent business-minded Krupps Family brought generations of
professional success, despite ongoing rises and falls, but it also brought
ongoing personal unhappiness in relationships. Muhlen highlights the good, the
bad, the insane asylums, the tensions, and the divorces.
The history of the Krupp Family parallels German history: ‘As Germany went,
so went Krupp.’
It is a fascinating account of one family over 200 years as a steady small
family business, and another 150 years with generations of Krupps establishing
an empire. While Bertha Krupp did inherit the business, it was Gustav, her
husband, that became the custodian, taking on the Krupp name and the Krupp
family business. So this is very much about Krupp males as they fail, rise,
fail, survive the war years, fail, rise and fail again, until eventually the
Krupp’s hold on the empire ends. How does such a continuous family business
end? How, indeed.
MARTINA NICOLLS is an international
aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of
Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet
(2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
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