Talk:Krupp

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Contents

[edit] the new page

I've been reading Manchester's Arms of Krupp, and decided to write a nice article/articles. Since the original Krupp article was pretty basic. I've just started off with the very early stuff, but put in a preliminary outline for the rest of the Krupp history, up to its merger with Thyssen. I'll be adding to the page regularly (I hope), and presumably will be adding separate pages for certain topics. I don't really like the look of all the "to be written" empty parts in the article atm, but in line with the whole be bold thing, I thought it best to put in my changes right away, instead of waiting till I had a fuller history written. So that's that; we'll see how it goes.

--Ed Halter 00:15, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)


Is this the same Krupp that created this gigantic machine? http://www.swapmeetdave.com/Humor/Workshop/Trencher.htm No site seems to mention the name of it - I think it's worthy of a Wikipedia entry.

[edit] your shameful entry on krupp

the entry completely ignores alfred's raging reactionism, including his sponseship of proto-nazi extreme rightists. it glibly glosses over the life of Friedrich Alfred his shady business dealings with both the kaiser and tirpiz naval c-in-c and in general the family's noxios role in feuling the european arms' race at this time. it makes no mention of friedrich's suicide after the exposure in the press of his ravenous pederacy, such delicacy, and WORST OF ALL misdepicts alfried as "opposed to the nazi party" but "forced to cooperate with hitler" by bussiness concerns whereas the vile man was an unqustionable and bloodthirsty nazi hoodloom for wich he and his co-defendants were justly convicted at their trial contrary to your lying claim to the contrary, though the conviction was overturned in an atrocious miscarriage of justice by the today much despised John j. McLOY high comissioner of the american zone of occupation, and guardian angel of convicted Nazis

you-Ed Hartley- claim to have decided to write your aricle following a reading of william mancheser's "the arms of krupp". how then, have you managed to so completely contradict all he wrote? your article is "nice", your choice of words, in sofar as it presents us with a much blander potrait of the krupp family and its enterprise then the truth, as opposed to a lie, would permit. what motivated you I wonder, shear venality fo its own sake, neo-nazi revisionism, some reward from the corporation, a combination of all?

Let me guess. You don't like Krupp? You wouldn't be Jewish, would you? Not an unbiased observer, then, I'd say. Also not one with guts enough to sign your screed, per usual for the cowards that spout such venomous drivel. Trekphiler 20:14, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

,== On Nazis associations, etc. ==

I know that this is a touchy topic on wikipedia, but there is some historical debate on the Krupp's associations with the National Socialist Party. I certainly would not use the statement "He was like his father Gustav a commited Nazi..." as this was hardly the case. The Krupps were reluctant supporters of the Third Reich and it definitely took a while for the Krupp's to "come around." They were not members of the National Socialist Party, so they should not be considered Nazis in the first place. As the war progress their ties obviously grew, but calling them committed Nazis is a historical innaccuracy.

--Nkowal 20:18, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

while you are partialy correct regarding gustav krupp for he was initialy sceptical about the nazis. there is nonetheless no denying that he soon degenerated into a hysterical hitler enthusiast to a pointthat his wife and associates, no strangers realpolitic though they were, found baffling and disconcerting, while the ravening nazism of the ghastly alfried cannot, I feel be contested in good concience. shear snobbery alone may have prvented him from formaly joining the NSDAP, though not ,mind you, its affiliates, notably the odious "circle of the friends of Heinrich Himmler" which he joined before gustav's bufoonish epiphany, and over his obgections, but these are cosmetic externalities. a commitment to nazism was not, and still is not, a matter of such beurocratic trifles as possesing or not possesing a party card. it manifested itself in the man's shear unreasoning murderousness towards the reich's designated "racial enemies". claiming that they 'sould not be considered nazis in the first place' on that account is foolish at best, deceitful at worst. it is almost better to read the ku-klaning drivel of the frenzied nullity that assumes the psychotic neologism of trekphiler.

[edit] Krupp's involvement in Hitler's rise

I do agree yuo guys that there was links between Hitler in this family. Unfortunately, these are real facts, unfortunately, rare are the books or sources mentionning.

I've heard in a university course, that is likely omitted in history books, that the Krupp family along with the Thissen and the Farben were a contributing factor on the rise of Hitler towards power. From what I heard, the three groups wanted him to be in power in order to combat union groups as well as communism but didn't care about other issues of Hitler's philosophy (i.e racism).

And in another fact, I've haerd that in the Nuremburg trial of the Krupps mentionned that he knew what he would have done (anti-jewish policies for exemple) but he said that he didn't really care about that just the aforementioned two demands (combatting union and communism).--JForget 19:06, 2 November 2006 (UTC)


I believe the father died soon after WW2 suffering from dementia - he was not competent to stand trial, or run a business. His support of the Nazis seems to be through a senile fog. 159.105.80.141 15:16, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] On Paris Guns

The paragraph just after the mention of Paris Guns in WWI contradicts information from the Paris Gun article themselves. I'm commenting it out. Wesha 20:52, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] vandalism

I just wanted to draw attention to the section about Alfred, currently titled "Alfred's an Idiot," and featuring the line "born in Essen as an idiot." In addition, the photograph next to the Alfred heading sports the enigmatic caption of "cameron." I'm guessing that this is vandalism.
Marksman45 11:48, 3 February 2006 (UTC)
Wait, there's more, it also makes the astute accusation that Alfred Krupp "liked his fathers death because he was a necrofeliac" [sic].
Marksman45 11:52, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] typewriter

In the film Naked Lunch, the character Hans says that he uses a brand of typewriter called a "Krupp Dominator." Did the Krupp company in fact manufacture a typewriter, or is this merely a creative invention on scriptwriter David Cronenberg's part, using the Krupp name?
Marksman45 12:07, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Minor Error

"Tires" is misspelled in the third paragraph of Alfred's era.

[edit] Krupp during World War Two, slave labour, operating in death camps

I also just started reading Manchester's Arms of Krupp - this article does appear to be a little "sanitized". I will attempt to add some factual content into the article from the book. Does anybody have any comments (it might be a while before I finish the book). Megapixie 03:57, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Looks like it's time for me to break out the Neave book again! :)

Two chapters are devoted right at the start of the book to the connection between Krupp and the Nazi regime. The first is entitled At The Villa Huegel (Neave's spelling), and describes how Neave was, in his capacity as an officer working for the British prosecution team, ordered to search the Villa Huegel and gather evidence that Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach was involved in the rearmament of Germany in violation of the Treaty of Versailles and the exploitation of slave labourers. The former charge proved easy to establish, as Krupp himself had boasted openly of his part in rearming Germany in a speech at the University of Berlin in 1944. Neave cites that he found a ton in weight of Krupp documents at the Villa Huegel, though none directly implicated Gustav himself. It was with some surprise that Neave found himself investigating Gustav, as the following words reveal:

  • "In September Colonel Harry Phillimore, the percipient head of the British War Crimes Executive, wrote to the foreign office:
    • I must confess that I have been somewhat astonished that Gustav Krupp should have been selected as he is, I understand, virtually dead. So much so that his family have already been to the Villa to collect mourning clothes and I think the Will has already been read. Alfried, who was just as deeply implicated, would, I should have thought, have been more likely to get to the Court.
  • Gustav was never tried at Nuremberg, being, as Phillimore supposed 'virtually dead', although he lingered on until 1950. It was Alfried, his son, who was finally convicted by an American tribunal in July 1948. He was found guilty on much of the evidence I had collected at Essen." (p.30)

Neave continued in the chapter entitled Slave Labour At Essen with more details. Among them being:

  • "In spite of the efforts of Alfried and his faithful staff, another ton of documents was discovered at the main administration building. It was impossible to process them at Hohe Bochum and they were sent via truck to the British War Crimes Executive at Bad Oeynhausen. Many of these documents found their way into the record of Alfried's trial at Nuremberg two years afterwards.
  • Gustav was always on the side of the Establishment. In a report to Phillimore I wrote: 'Within a few weeks of appointment as Chancellor, Krupp appears to have asked for and obtained interviews with him. From then on he appears as a supporter of the Führer'. I described his attitude as 'flagrant opportunism'. Gustav was quite frank about it. I found the draft of a speech in 1936: 'We all know the reason for this gratifying rise in profits. The prosperity of our firm is inseparably bound up with the fate of our Fatherland ... it is a great satisfaction to the firm and all associated with it that we have a share in contributing to the re-arming of our people'. (p.38)

Neave continues as follows:

  • "Evidence against Albert Speer, the architect of mass enslavement, showed that no less than 4,795,000 foreign workers were torn from their homes and forced to work for Hitler. Alfried Krupp employed about 70,000 of these workers, a small proportion of the total, but they were treated with organised brutality. He used slave labour from Auschwitz in his own automatic weapons plant in sight of the crematoria and gaschambers. He had a howitzer plant in Silesia manned by Jews from the same concentration camp which he named the Berthawerk after his mother. There are those who seek to excuse the Krupps. They claim that the Nazis forced them to employ foreign women and children under pain of arrest. This is quite untrue. Industrialists in Germany were given the choice of not employing foreign workers. Even Hitler was surprised that a company like Krupp should insist on doing so. A brief study of the Nuremberg documents confirms this." (p.39)

Neave goes on to describe examples of the treatment meted out to slave labourers under the supervision of the Krupp plant police, for example:

  • "His employment of Jewish women and children in a camp at Humboldtstrasse near the works shows Alfried at his most inhuman. Shipments of Czech, Rumanian and Hungarian Jewesses from Auschwitz, were penned in at night by SS guards and barbed wire. They marched to the factory in wooden clogs, to carry out work far beyond the capabilities of their failing strength. Their legs, that last winter of the war, were blue with cold and scarred by frostbite. They lived on a slice of bread and a bowl of watery soup. It was proved at Alfried's trial that they were horse-whipped by an SS man who struck at their eyes. A woman was blinded and at least one was whipped to death." (pp. 39 & 40)
  • "We reported to the British War Crimes Executive all that we could find. I remember the evidence about the Ukrainian women in the winter of 1944, when there was often two feet of snow on the ground. They were confined in unheated barracks and awakened at four a.m. by jets of icy water. 'Once the prisoners were up, guards attacked them with solid rubber hoses, lashing at their breasts'." (p. 40)
  • "On a visit to the main administration building, I looked at a steel box about five feet high with a dividing partition. This was known as the 'cage'. I noticed two holes in the lid which was secured by heavy bolts. These were the only ventilation. What happened to recalcitrant slaves is best told by General Telford Taylor, American Chief Prosecutor at Alfried's trial in 1947: 'Slave workers were crammed in a crouching position and left for periods of hours up to several days. A refinement of torture was to pour water during the winter weather on to the victims through the airholes in the top of the cupboard'." (pp. 40 & 41)

Given that the prosecution were able to sift through at least two tons of documents relating to Krupp's activities, and establish that the company under Alfried in particular (as Gustav was increasingly senile and medically invalid during the periods of greatest interest to the prosecution with respect to slave labour issues) was not only involved in conspiring to violate the Treaty of Versailles, but the ruthless implementation of the Nazi 'extermination though work' policy in its factories, I think it safe to say that the company was thus involved. Calilasseia 13:48, 30 May 2006 (UTC)


If I remember right Krupp was the first company to have company housing and healthcare-I will have to reread the Arms of Krupp to make sure


[edit] Krupp discussion in general

It is a truth commonly accepted that detailed and thorough knowledge and professional competence are the basis for every statement or comment concerning historical events and developments, privately or in public. This competence as a rule is acquired by research in archives etc. and by reading relevant books and other publications which again are based on thorough research. Obviously this principle does not hold true with those “experts” submitting their contributions to the Krupp-articles and discussions in Wikipedia. How otherwise could it be that their propositions and comments swarm with factoids, misinterpretations, preconceptions, stereotypes and errors, to put it mildly. None of them ever seems to have had a look at more than one book, if at all. This book obviously is Manchester´s “The Arms of Krupp”, published in 1964 already and as unreliable as misleading. Manchester himself never did any archive research, his references are doubtful and his interpretations and presentations are extremely polemic and even incorrect. Reading this book only does not suffice to take part in a competent discussion. Where are references to the current state of research, where are references to e.g. the lately published books by Lothar Gall (Krupp. Der Aufstieg eines Industrieimperiums, Berlin 2000; Krupp im 20. Jahrhundert, Berlin 2002 ) or Klaus Tenfelde (Pictures of Krupp: Photography and History in the Industrial Age, London/New York 2005) ? Nowhere. Instead of this, like a mantra, continuing repetitions of obsolete and “traditional” perceptions and misconceptions of who and what was “Krupp”. Granted, of course, that the atrocities committed by the protagonists and cooperators of the Third Reich arouse anger and repulsion. But emotion cannot replace scientific thoroughness and competence, historical research is of a different stamp. So if you are interested in history and historical research do it seriously. Thoughtless parroting does not lead to scientific knowledge but to blind ignorance. Finally I may indicate that I will – depending on my spare time for this - do some corrections concerning the gravest errors in the present articles. Touchstone170.56.58.153 12:24, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

New to Wikipedia, are you? It's the 'free' encyclopedia; it is a truth commonly accepted that one most often acquires that which one pays for! As an apparent eminent expert professional (self-proclaimed, at least), who is evidently unfazed by the uncompensated nature of efforts on behalf of the aforementioned free encyclopedia, I suggest you get cracking! Illuminate us with your scientific insight, feed us the first fruits of your relentless spelunking in archives, and beat us into trembling submission with your grammatically-challenged and ponderous monologues of pedantic drivel. I can only hope that you have at least completed your solemn task of 'corrections concerning the gravest errors in the present articles'? It's already 2008 man, fill your boots and start typing! —Preceding unsigned comment added by DredenBarber 05:06, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Alfred or Alfried

There are two literal spellings of the name Alfred in German, Alfred and Alfried. Though the latter is very rare, both are promounced in the souther Germanic Accent as "Alfried".

So, which is it to be in this article?

"and Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach (1907 - 67) took over the management. After Germany's defeat, when Gustav proved incapable of going on trial, the U.S. Nuremberg Military Tribunal convicted Alfred as a war criminal "

Enjoy.


According to the quoted dates you mean Alfried. This is the whole story: Alfred Krupp (26.4.1812-14.7.1887) was Friedrich Krupp´s son. Friedrich Krupp founded the Gussstahlfabrik (cast iron factory) Fried. (= Friedrich) Krupp in 1811. After his father´s death in 1826 Alfred Krupp carried on the business together with his family and seven workers and became sole owner of the factory in 1848. When he died in 1887 ca. 20200 workers were occupied in his company. Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach (13.8.1907-30.7.1967) was his great-grandson. As his father Gustav von Bohlen und Halbach was not a born „Krupp“ – only after he had married Bertha Krupp in 1906 he was given the privilege to precede his name with the name “Krupp” = Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach – Alfried´s second name was „von Bohlen und Halbach”. After having taken over the company in December 1943, however, his name was changed to “Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach”. Touchstone 170.56.58.153 10:44, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unsourced Remark

Given the fact this article is about the Krupp Industry and not the Gustav Gun it may not be that important. However there are some disparaging remarks about the history of the Gustav and Dora Guns. I've done some research into them and never found anything credible to suggest the troops had a problem with the massive weapon. While it should be mentioned that the inaccuracy of it should be weighed againgst its power considering in russia (can't remember exactly wear) the Gustav managed to destroy a ship in the harbor that it missed, the blast of the projectile in the water caused it to capsize. If I am wrong about this or there is some credible source for this bad opinion by the troops please correct me, otherwise the disparaging remarks should be removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.138.228.71 (talk) 03:39, 7 November 2007 (UTC)