Alfried Krupp (right) and his son Arndt (left) with President Sylvanus Olympio of Togo, while visiting Villa Hügel on 17 May 1961

Alfried Felix Alwyn Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach (* August 13, 1907 in Essen; † July 30, 1967 ibid.) was a German engineer and the last personal sole owner of the company Fried. Krupp. The eldest of eight siblings, he came from the Krupp family on his mother's side and from the von Bohlen und Halbach family on his father's side.

Life

Childhood and youth

Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach was born the eldest son of his parents Gustav and Bertha Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach at the Krupp family residence, Villa Hügel, where he grew up together with his siblings. His godfather was Kaiser Wilhelm II. He attended the Realgymnasium in Essen-Bredeney, now the Goetheschule, studied engineering in Munich, Berlin and Aachen from 1928 to 1934 and graduated from the TH Aachen with a degree in engineering. He then completed a traineeship at Dresdner Bank in Berlin.

Family

In 1937, Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach married the daughter of a Hamburg merchant, Annelise Lampert née Bahr (1909-1998). He had a son with her, Arndt von Bohlen und Halbach. The marriage ended in divorce in 1941. Arndt was later found to be unsuitable to manage the Krupp company by his father and others.[1]

In 1952, Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach was in his second marriage to Vera Knauer née Hossenfeldt (divorced from Langen, Wisbar and Knauer, 1909-1967). The marriage ended in divorce in 1957.[2]

Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach was the last person with this surname. According to Wilhelm II's decree and Adolf Hitler's Lex Krupp, the suffix "Krupp" before the surname was only to be used by persons who were also owners of the Krupp company. With the transfer of the company to a foundation, this legal provision became obsolete.[3]

Entry into the company

In March 1943, Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach followed his father Gustav as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Fried. Krupp AG. At this time, his mother Bertha held almost all the shares in Fried. Krupp AG. In 1943, Fried. Krupp AG was transformed from a stock corporation into a family business, the sole owner of which was to be a family member. Analogous to the imperial decree (name propagation letter), the name Krupp was placed before his respective family name to the owner by the so-called Führererlass Lex Krupp.[4] The purpose of the Lex Krupp was also to save the company the payment of inheritance tax. Von Bohlen und Halbach was therefore only allowed to put the name "Krupp" in front of his birth name with Adolf Hitler's authorization. His birth certificate was corrected at the Essen-Bredeney registry office on June 17, 1944.

On December 15, 1943, Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach became the sole owner of the Krupp company. At this time, the company was a major industrial enterprise and one of the most important suppliers of armaments to the National Socialist German Empire.

Relations with National Socialism

Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach had been a supporting member of the SS since 1931. He was a member of the National Socialist Flyers Corps, in which he ultimately held the rank of Standartenführer. In 1937, like his father, he was appointed military economy leader. He was also his father's deputy as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Adolf Hitler Fund of German Trade and Industry.

Alfried Krupp was admitted to the NSDAP on December 1, 1938 (membership number 6,989,627). The application for membership was submitted on November 11, 1938.[5] He was also a member of the Armaments Council of the Reich Ministry for Armaments and War Production. After the start of the war, he was responsible for the dismantling of factories in the territories occupied by the Wehrmacht and their reconstruction in the German Empire. Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach was awarded the War Merit Cross II and I Class.

In 2022 the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation commissioned historian Eckart Conze, Professor of Modern and Recent History at Philipps-Universität Marburg, to conduct a scientific research project of Alfried Krupp’s role during the Nazi era.[6] As a result, a study was published in July 2023: The research project has uncovered sources that are being evaluated as part of further research in a second project phase.[7]

The second project phase began in 2024 and is dedicated to in-depth research based on the results and identified sources from the first project phase. The aim is a multi-perspective anthology, which is being compiled by eight authors and will also be published in English. The publication will be edited by the Society for Business History. A digital application is being developed to accompany the publication with the aim of making the topic as accessible and location-independent as possible and to reach young target groups in particular.[8][9]

Use of forced labourers during the Second World War

During the World War II, Fried. Krupp, like all other large German companies, employed forced labourers. Due to the constant fluctuation, a total number cannot be determined, but the highest number of prisoners of war and foreign civilian and forced labourers on a given date was around 25,000 on January 1, 1943. It is now assumed that there were at least 100,000 forced labourers.[10]

From mid-1942, the company planned the production sites "Berthawerk" in Markstädt (Lower Silesia) and Auschwitz in particular, without government pressure, because forced labourers from concentration camps were available there. After the Ignition workshop in Essen was bombed out in March 1943, Auschwitz was chosen as an alternative production site at a meeting attended by Alfried Krupp. After the war, Krupp testified that the initiative for the Auschwitz site had come from the Upper Command of the Army. In fact, however, the suggestion came from representatives of the company. In September 1943, Alfried Krupp was still trying to keep the Auschwitz site for the company. At that time, 270 prisoners were working there for the company.[5]

Relationships in trade associations

Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach was a co-founder in 1941 and subsequently a member of the executive committee of the Reichsvereinigung Kohle and from 1942 deputy chairman of the Reichsvereinigung Eisen. He was also a member of the Advisory Board of the Ausfuhrgemeinschaft für Kriegsgerät and a member of the Board of Directors of Berg- und Hüttenwerksgesellschaft Ost mbH (BHO).

Imprisonment and the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial

On April 11, 1945, Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach was placed under arrest by American troops in the Villa Hügel, later transferred to the Staumühle internment camp and interrogated there until the trial began.[11] After the Allies had initially intended to indict his father Gustav in the first Nuremberg trial against the main war criminals, but he was declared unfit to stand trial due to illness and weakness, the Americans indicted Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach together with eleven senior employees of the Krupp company in a separate trial (Case X: Krupp Trial) in 1947.

In 1948, he was sentenced to twelve years in prison and the confiscation of all his assets for slave labour (use of forced labourers) and the plundering of economic assets in occupied foreign countries. In the indictment, he was also accused of planning a war of aggression and the associated conspiracy. However, he was acquitted of this charge, as it was his father and not he who ran the company in the period before the World War II. In an interview with the London Daily Mail newspaper in 1959, when asked if he had "any sense of guilt", he replied: "What guilt? For what happened under Hitler? No. But it is regrettable that the German people themselves allowed themselves to be so deceived by Hitler."[12]

Amnesty and the Mehlem Treaty

On the basis of a report by independent American experts, Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach was pardoned by decision of the U.S. High Commissioner for Germany John Jay McCloy on January 31, 1951 and released early from the Landsberg prison which was used by the Allied powers for holding Nazi War Criminals.

In 1953, the so-called Mehlem Agreement was concluded between Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach and the governments of the USA, Great Britain and France. Under this agreement, all his assets were returned to him under certain conditions. One of the key conditions was the provision that the mining and metallurgical operations would be separated from the Krupp Company and sold by 1959.

Renewed entrepreneurial activity

In March 1953, Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach took over the management of the company again. At the end of the same year, he brought Berthold Beitz into the Group as his personal Chief Representative. He completely converted the company to civilian production, mainly plant engineering. The Fried. Krupp Company quickly regained its position as a leading steel producer. Although the mining and smelting operations were subsequently separated - as provided for in the Mehlem Agreement - they were not ultimately sold. Instead, they were combined in 1960 and merged with Bochumer Verein für Gussstahlfabrikation AG.

Establishment of the Foundation and death

Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach died shortly before his sixtieth birthday because of the consequences of lung cancer. His coffin was passed by 18,000 people; the then Federal President Heinrich Lübke,[13] President of the Bundestag Eugen Gerstenmaier and Minister President of North Rhine-Westphalia Heinz Kühn spoke at the funeral service. Shortly before his death, he ordered the establishment of a Foundation, which was to be "an expression of the tradition of the House of Krupp committed to the common good". On his death, his entire estate was transferred to the foundation. [14]This was made possible by his son Arndt von Bohlen und Halbach's renunciation of his inheritance.

The Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation commenced operations on January 1, 1968, uses the income it receives from its shareholding exclusively and directly for charitable purposes and is today the largest single shareholder of thyssenkrupp AG.[15]

Personal

Record collection

After his death, Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach's record collection went to the Folkwang University in Essen. Even before his death (1966), he had donated part of the Villa Hügel library to the Ruhr University Bochum.

Sailing

Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach was an enthusiastic sailor. At the sailing competitions of the 1936 Summer Olympics off Kiel, he won the bronze medal for Germany with the crew of his 8mR racing yacht Germania III.[16] He later had the yachts Germania V (1956), which he donated to the Deutscher Hochseesportverband HANSA, and Germania VI (1963) built, with which he also actively sailed.[17]

Honors

In 1961, Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach received the Ring of Honor from the city of Essen, after the city of Essen had distanced itself from his parents Gustav and Bertha Krupp 15 years earlier and had revoked their honorary citizenship. Now, on the 150th anniversary of the Krupp company, Alfried was honoured. The anniversary speech was given by former German President Theodor Heuss. On the perception of Krupp in the post-war period, he said: "Let me put it quite drastically: the idea as if the procuration and the design office at (the armaments companies) Schneider-Creusot, at Škoda [...] and so on were entrusted to heavenly angels, while the corresponding buildings at Krupp were a branch of the devilish hell. Throughout the millennia of human history, the manufacture of weapons [...] is a very simple historical fact, which one may certainly regret. But that does not eliminate it from the world."[18]

The Alfried Krupp Institute for Advanced Study (in German: Alfried Krupp Wissenschaftskolleg Greifswald), the Alfried Krupp Hospital in Essen, the rescue cruiser Alfried Krupp, a chair for corporate and capital market law at Bucerius Law School and the Alfried Krupp College on the campus of Jacobs University Bremen are named after him.

Ancestry

References

  1. ^ Käppner, Joachim; Schmidt, Helmut (2017). Berthold Beitz: die Biographie. Piper (Ungekürzte Taschenbuchausgabe, 5. Auflage ed.). München Zürich. ISBN 978-3-492-30346-0.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  2. ^ "Heilige Kuh". Der Spiegel (in German). 18 August 1968. ISSN 2195-1349. Retrieved 28 February 2025.
  3. ^ WDR (7 April 2020). "Die Krupps und die Mächtigen". www.planet-wissen.de (in German). Retrieved 28 February 2025.
  4. ^ Rother, Thomas (2001). Die Krupps: durch fünf Generationen Stahl. Familienbande. Frankfurt/Main ; New York: Campus. ISBN 978-3-593-36530-5.
  5. ^ a b "Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach und der Nationalsozialismus" (PDF). Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach und der Nationalsozialismus.
  6. ^ "Alfried Krupp und der Nationalsozialismus". Philipps-Universität Marburg (in German). Retrieved 28 February 2025.
  7. ^ "Alfried Krupp". Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach-Stiftung. Retrieved 28 February 2025.
  8. ^ "Krupp Foundation continues research project on the position of its founder Alfried Krupp towards National Socialism". Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach-Stiftung (in German). Retrieved 28 February 2025.
  9. ^ "Krupp-Stiftung bringt Forschungsprojekt zur Haltung von Alfried Krupp zum Nationalsozialismus in zweite Phase". Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach-Stiftung (in German). Retrieved 28 February 2025.
  10. ^ Tofahrn, Klaus W. (2008). Das Dritte Reich und der Holocaust. Frankfurt: Peter Lang. ISBN 978-3-631-57702-8.
  11. ^ Gans, Manfred (2010). Life gave me a chance. p. 308. ISBN 978-0-557-20305-5.
  12. ^ Rother, Thomas (2006). Die Krupps: durch fünf Generationen Stahl. Bastei Lübbe (Lizenzausgabe, vollständige Taschenbuchausgabe, 4. Auflage ed.). Bergisch Gladbach: Bastei Lübbe. ISBN 978-3-404-61516-2.
  13. ^ Mauz, Gerhard (6 August 1967). "DER KÖNIG WAR TOT, EHE ER GESTORBEN WAR". Der Spiegel (in German). ISSN 2195-1349. Retrieved 28 February 2025.
  14. ^ "History". Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach-Stiftung. Retrieved 28 February 2025.
  15. ^ "About Us". Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach-Stiftung. Retrieved 28 February 2025.
  16. ^ ZEIT (Archiv), D. I. E. (11 August 1967). "Unter dem roten Greif". Die Zeit (in German). ISSN 0044-2070. Retrieved 28 February 2025.
  17. ^ Domizlaff, Svante; Rost, Alexander (2006). Germania: Die Yachten des Hauses Krupp. Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach-Stiftung (1. Aufl ed.). Bielefeld: Delius Klasing. ISBN 978-3-7688-1840-7.
  18. ^ WDR (7 April 2020). "Die Krupps und die Mächtigen". www.planet-wissen.de (in German). Retrieved 28 February 2025.
Allikas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfried_Krupp_von_Bohlen_und_Halbach
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