Despite the company’s slow beginning, the opening of the Krupp Works presaged the dominance of heavy industry, especially the manufacture of steel, in the industrialization of the European continent, and the Krupp Works eventually played a major role in the European arms race.
The Industrial Revolution
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the predominant industrial metal was iron, both cast and wrought—not its stronger alloy, steel. Great Britain was the major iron producer
The Huntsman technique was kept secret in Sheffield, but the city’s manufacturers of steel products that were superior to anything else then available took advantage of their reputation and their products were admired throughout Europe. However, by the early nineteenth century, some knowledge of the crucible methodology had begun to leak out, and European manufacturers attempted to duplicate it. That, in fact, was exactly the intent of the German Friedrich Krupp,
It eventually took more than twenty years for the small Krupp enterprise to master the crucible steelmaking technique. Meanwhile, the number of men working for Krupp varied from one to seven, and Krupp himself—who had no particular expertise in this field—experimented and hawked the results of his experiments around the small principalities of western Germany. During this crucial phase, Krupp was sustained by the substantial economic resources of his grandmother, Helene Amalie Ascherfeld Krupp
It was Krupp’s teenage grandson, Alfred Krupp
Krupp Works exhibit at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. The center of the exhibit is a massive wheeled cannon.
The first steel products of the Krupp Works to benefit from the marketing skills of the family were molds sold to the small principalities of western Germany for making coins. These high-quality molds established Krupp’s reputation. The market for steel then expanded with the creation of the Zollverein, a customs union encompassing much of central Germany in 1834. After it was formed, Alfred Krupp rushed to market his products throughout Germany. When railroads began to be built in Germany during the 1840’s and 1850’s, Krupp expanded his operation greatly, and the numbers of Krupp employees grew from single to double digits. By 1849, the Krupp Works had perfected steel springs and axles for railroad cars, and Krupp began marketing steel railroad-car wheels that were cast as a single piece. This innovation played a major part in the expansion of the business during the second half of the century, along with the replacement of iron rails of the earliest railroads with steel rails. Production of railroad supplies remained a major component of Krupp’s business and included much of the equipment and rails used on Canadian and early U.S. railroads.
It was the arms business, however, that made Krupp the powerhouse that it was to become by the end of the century. Alfred
Through the rest of his life, Alfred Krupp steadfastly refused to convert his family business from a sole proprietorship to a corporation. During the 1860’s, he created the Prokura, a five-person management unit that ran much of the firm’s day-to-day business. However, at his death in 1887, control of the entire firm passed to his son, Friedrich
The Krupp Works has been much demonized, especially for its role in providing war materiel to Germany’s government during World War I and World War II. Nevertheless, it was not fundamentally different from similar industrial empires elsewhere in the world, notably in the United States. Krupp rode the wave of industrialization during the early nineteenth century, when it was immeasurably assisted by the dominance of steel as the raw material of modern industry.
In some respects Krupp was a model of corporate welfare, as the company created a host of services to its employees: housing, insurance, health services, even grocery stores. The extent to which the company promoted large industry, and especially the production of armaments, has permanently tarnished its reputation, and may well have inspired the heir to the Krupp fortune voluntarily to give much of it up in 1965.
-
Batty, Peter. The House of Krupp. Rev. ed. Lanham, Md.: Cooper Square Press, 2002. First published in 1967, this survey of the Krupp dynasty from its founding to mid-twentieth century provides the most readable and concise study. Batty thoroughly investigates Alfred Krupp’s youth and is adroit at displaying the youthful factors that later played a role in his direction of the firm. -
Henderson, W. O. The Rise of German Industrial Power. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975. A comprehensive history of Germany’s rise to industrial preeminence in nineteenth century Europe. -
Landes, David. The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Nations Are So Rich and Some So Poor. New York: W. W. Norton, 1998. Major work by America’s preeminent historian of technology that gives a concise explanation of the problem of making steel during the early years of the nineteenth century. -
Manchester, William. The Arms of Krupp, 1587-1968. Boston: Little, Brown, 1968. A massive account by an American writer of popular histories. Manchester demonizes the firm, but he did consult the Krupp archives. -
Showalter, Dennis E. Railroads and Rifles: Soldiers, Technology, and the Unification of Germany. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1975. A close study of Krupp’s role in the unification of Germany. The author focuses on Krupp’s early years of business and his successful association with the Prussian government through the acquisition of government contracts. Especially well covered are Krupp’s armaments contracts during the critical period of German unification during the 1860’s and 1870’s.
Bessemer Patents Improved Steel-Processing Method
Austria and Prussia’s Seven Weeks’ War
Franco-Prussian War
Otto Invents a Practical Internal Combustion Engine
Benz Patents the First Practical Automobile
Great Britain Strengthens Its Royal Navy
Diesel Patents the Diesel Engine
Carl Benz; Sir Henry Bessemer; Rudolf Diesel; Alfred Krupp.