MEDFORD MAIL TRIBUNE. MEDFORD. OREGON
THURSDAY. FEBRUARY 14. 1913
E 3
(rupp Dynasty Still Prospers But Mills Supplant Arms Today
By WERNER ZWICK
United Press International
Frankfurt, Germany - (LTD -The
Third Reich was dying
that morning of April 8, 1943,
when American troops took
tile German industrial capital
of Essen and sent a jeep roar
ing out to a suburban hilltop
mansion.
A butler in knee breeches
and white gloves opened the
big front door of the Villa
Huegel and told the G.I.'s,
"Herr Von Gohlen expects
you."
The soldiers brushed past
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the butler, dashed up the
sweeping staircase that em
perors and dictators had
ascended before them and ar
rested Alf ried Krupp Von
Bohlen.
It seemed the end of the
Krupp empire, the mightiest
of all the industrial barons
and dynasties of the Ruhr.
The victorious Allies marked
their industrial complexes for
extinction.
Krupps Still Her
But the Krupps and their
fellows today are important
figures in the role West Ger
many plays in the European
Common Market. Their stay
ing power is historic.
Napoleon's armies came
and went. Kings and kaisers
entered and existed from the
German scene. The second
and third reichs had their rise
and fall. A century and a half
passed.
The Ruhr barons were here
then and they are here today.
In 1945 the name Krupp
was cursed as bitterly as the
swastika.
! When Hitler was building
his war machine, Hermann
Goering called for guns in
stead of butter. It was the
Krupp works that supplied
the guns.
Destroy Plants
On March 11, 1945, a raid
I by 1,000 Royal Air Force
J bombers on Essen converted
j the major Krupp plants into
I heaps of twisted steel and
j debris. When the war ended
! Krupp and a score of his
directors were sentenced to
1 12-year prison terms by the
Nurenberg Tribunals.
The Krupps had been down
before. F r i e d r i c h Krupp
founded the empire in 1811
when Napoleon's blockade of
Britain deprived the conti
nent of the island's high qual
ity steel. Krupp, a grocer in
the sleepy town of Essen,
thought he had discovered the
secret of producing the
famed "English steel." But the
firm was nearly bankrupt
when his son Alfred took over
at the age of 14.
Alfred eventually carried
the company to the heights by
inventing the seamless rail
road wheel, producing steel
that was equal to the British
and turning out cannons for
the Franco -Prussian war of
1870-71.
Krupp, Sick Man
The next head of the em
pire, Friedrich Albert Krupp,
was a sick man who died in
1902 under still unexplained
circumstances on the Isle of
Capri. His daughter Bertha
married Dr. Gustav Von Boh-len-Halbach,
who was granted
the right to call himself
Krupp by a decree of Kaiser
Wilhelm II.
Gustav headed the firm dur
ing World War I, producing
the famed "Big Bertha" can
non, named after hi.; wife,
that was used to shell the out
skirts of Paris.
He helped Hitler re -arm
Germany after the dictator as
sumed power in 1933.
When Gustav Krupp suffer
ed a brain hemorrhage in
1943, Hitler appointed his son
Alfried sole heir of the family
fortunes, A chain smoker with
a shy and reticent personality
who had lived his life in the
shadow of his overbearing
father, Alfried had to pay the
bill of four generations at
Nuernberg.
Serves Half Term
On Feb. 3, 1951, American
High Commissioner John Mc
Cloy pardoned Alfried Krupp
after he had served half of
his 12-year sentence in Lands
berg prison. The dismantling
of his factories also had stop
ped as the western powers had
little use for machinery that
was by then obsolete, and the
allied-supervised firm's ship
ments to Soviet Russia were
halted when the Russians fail
ed to supply promised raw
materials in r turn.
Even before his pardon, the
Nuernberg Tribunal's decision
confiscating all of Krupp's
property had been revised.
Upon his release from jail, he
was ordered only to sell his
coal and steel holdings and
pay his relatives $115 million
in cash and shares.
Krupp paid off his relatives
but fought to keep his "bread
and butter" industries, the
coal and steel holdings.
The Allied orders for sale
of the holdings still stand to
day. But their deadline is ex
tended periodically because
Krupp says he cannot find a
buyer with enough money.
Financiers agree.
The Krupp industries today
produce instead of arms entire
steel plants, rolling mills, ce
ment and chemical factories
and, in 1962, had a turnover
. '4... "
t A ..
vt "x -
mil s
m
A few years ago a representative group of Ameri
cans gathered at a university round table to discuss
our economy, and named it "people's capitalism."
Reaction from the Communists was instant. They
were appalled. They scorned the idea. They called
it "impossible as fried ice." They mobilized their
professors who wrote papers proving to their com
plete satisfaction there could be no such thing as
"people's capitalism."
The fact is that much of the capital that runs
America comes from the millions of people who
make up America. It flows into our economy through
their savings accounts, pension funds, stock and bond
purchases, life insurance premiums. And through
the $45 billion worth of U. S. Savings Bonds held by
tens of millions of Americans.
This stake the American people have in their coun
try is evidence of our abiding faith in our way of
life and our determination to keep our freedoms in
tact. And to help mankind all over the world in its
fight against slavery and oppression.
Are you in the fight? Show that you are by buying
Savings Bonds at your bank or through Payroll Sav
ings where you work. And see if you don't feel pretty
good about it.
How U. S. Savings Bonds
help build your own capital
1. You get $1 for every $3 at maturity. 2. Your Bonds are replaced
free if lost. 3. You tan get your money anytime. 4. You can save
automatically on Payroll Savings.
Keep freedom in your future with
U.S. SAVINGS BONDS
. YJQ . ... . , j. w - l Ut, 4rtoM. ZU rnwri Dtmftmtnt tknkt IU r(W CwU d O.U c.p.W It fUitto npperi.
T. 1 " r
:ft,7 n
CURRENT EMPIRE HEAD Alfried Krupp von Bohlen,
current head of the Krupp industrial empire, walks past
a bust of his grandfather, the late Friedrich Alfried Krupp.
Bust of the elder Krupp was unveiled in front of Yacht
of more than 4 billion marks
($1 billion dollars).
Thyssen Dynasty
Another of Germany's early
industrial barons, August
Thyssen, founded the Thyssen
dynasty about 100 years ago.
When he died he left his son
Fritz about $200 million, con
trol over half of Germany's
coal and steel, 14 harbors,
60,000 houses, plus banks,
shipyards and factories.
Fritz Thyssen, born in 1873,
wanted to maintain his power
but was afraid of the growing
influence of socialism and
communism in Germany dur
ing the Weimar republic. So
he financed Hitler.
Thyssen persuaded other
Rhur barons" to jointly
spend about $20 million to
help put Hitler into power.
But as Hitler brought Ger
many to the brink of war,
Thyssen became suspicious.
He fled the country when
German troops invaded Po
land, and denounced Hitler.
The Nazis promptly confis
cated Thyssen's property in
Germany. In 1941, Thyssen
was handed over to Hitler by
the Vichy French government
along with other German
refugees. He was taken back
to Germany and given the
chance of renouncing his anti
Nazi attitude. Whatever his
answer, his path did not lead
to the gallows or a concentra
tion camp, but to a sanator
ium. Fritz Thyssen spent the
years after the war in retire
ment, while his empire was
administered by the Allied
military government. His for
tune has since passed to Ame-
lie Thyssen and Countess
Anita Zicky, his widow and
daughter, who today control
21 per cent of West Germany's
steel.
There are other Ruhr bar
ons in West German, such as
Dr. Friedrich Flick, a former
bookkeeper who today con
trols Nobel Dynamite, the
Daimler Bcnz (Mercedes) car
works and numerous coal and
steel plants although the Al-
ies ordered him to get rid of
these holdings after the war.
There are also the Haniels,
who number about 250 and
run the giant Guettenwerk
Oberhausen and the Maschin-
enfabrik Augsburg-Nuernberg
(MAN) industrial concerns.
While Germany's Industrial
giants again accumulated tre
mendous financial power after
World War II, their Influence
in the political sphere seems
far less pronounced than un
der the Kaiser or Adolf Hitler.
Economically, their power
is limited today by the ex
treme labor shortage In West
Germany, which has boosted
the power of trade unions to
a new high.
And Alfried Krupp, whose
godfather was Kaiser Wilhelm
II, has vowed he will never
again produce arms.
Club building prior to opening of 1962 Kiel
Krupps, once apparently an extinct breed,
figures in Germany. (UPI)
Regatta week,
are again top
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