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Krupp - 1826-1887 - Alfred

The house of Krupp was a national institution in the Fatherland. Its name is almost as revered as that of the Hohenzollerns itself. To slander it is to affront the nation. The firm's prestige weathered the storm of many events, which threatened to undermine it. Since the great exhibition at London in 1851, when an obscure Rhenish steelmaker from Essen electrified the military universe with a six-pounder of flawless cast steel, down to 1914, the German Army and Navy bought twenty-nine thousand Krupp guns. Those of them which barked from the turrets of the Kaiser's Dreadnoughts and the ramparts of Metz and Konigsberg thundered forth a different story than the cannon of the terrified and untrained Turk. When Armageddon descended there would be men behind the guns of Germany's artillery.

Alfred Krupp, at the age of fourteen, was charged with the double responsibility of developing his father's inventions and supporting his mother and the younger children. A roller for making silver-plated spoons proved successful; he sold the patent to England for a round sum, and at last he had sufficient capital to extend his plant. He first attracted public attention in 1844 at the Deutsche Gewerbe-Ausstellung in Berlin, where he exhibited two gun barrels. The official report dwells on the " extraordinary service which the expositor has rendered to the national industry by perfecting the manufacture of steel."

Krupp cannon construction dated from 1844, when the Prussian military authorities ordered an experimental one-ton gun of cast steel. At last, in 1859, the prince regent of Prussia, subsequently Emperor William I, gave an order for 300 cannon, and the first complete shop for the manufacture of guns was built in 1861. This ended Krupp's period of trials, though his path continued to be strewn with difficulties, - as, e.g., during the war of 1866, when his guns failed to give satisfaction, through no fault of his. Krupp fame and fortune were derived basically from the unification of Germany, the Gennan wars against Denmark and Austria, and the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. The Franco-Prussian War, finally, resulted in victory for Krupp, through the victorious German arms that had been forged in his establishment. The victorious German armies were extensively armed with Krupp guns, and after the Franco-Prussian War, Alfred Krupp was commonly referred to as the "cannon king."

Alfred Krupp was a pronounced individualist, and as such had no sympathy whatever with German Social Democracy. He meant to be master in his establishment, and would suffer no dictation of any kind from his men. In his frequent proclamations, issued in times of labor troubles, he always emphasized the fact that from the beginning he himself had been, and still was, one of the hardest workers, who had hesitated at no pecuniary sacrifices in the interest of the works ; that the prosperity of the plant was due to his inventions, his foreign credit, and his reputation ; and that any excesses or unjust demands of the employees would only work detriment to themselves.

Alfred Krupp, the bitter opponent of Social Democracy, was indeed a benefactor of labor, and the first employer of large masses of men who recognized his social responsibilities toward them. The funds, amounting to millions of dollars, established by Alfred Krupp for the benefit of his workmen, were vastly increased during the lifetime of Eriedrich Krupp. Every student of social economy knows that for many years these institutions have been admirably organized, and that the Krupp factory was the prototype of the imperial German legislation for the benefit of the workingman, and for those regulations which have determined the mutual relations of the employer and the employee, in all Germany.

But if it was as a gunsmith that Alfred Krupp attained worldwide fame, nevertheless, he did not allow his enterprises to remain limited to armament manufacture alone. The Krupp iron and steel mills participated extensively in the early construction of Gennan railroads. With the development of the Bessemer process, steelmaking became a big business. In order to give his enterprises their own source of raw'materials, Krupp acquired extensive coal mines and iron ore beds. Later on, in furtherance of his export interests, Krupp acquired transport ships and docking interests in the Netherlands. After the Franco-Prussian War, Krupp became a large supplier of railroad equipment and other items used to build the railroad nets in the United States.

Alfred Krupp had been called the typical German manufacturer. Germany certainly owed more to him than to almost any other of its inventive minds, for he made that country the leading steel producer of the world, both as regards quantity, and especially quality ; he thus realized the ambitions with which the founder of the establishment opened his small factory nearly a century ealier. These brilliant results, achieved by one man, - for the establishment was virtually the product of Alfred Krupp's mechanical genius - were largely based on the two Krupp maxims: "No good steel without good iron," and "The establishment itself must furnish whatever it requires." Friedrich Krupp already had laid down the principle that the best raw material only can be used in order to produce a superior grade of steel. Alfred Krupp further enlarged upon this principle. It was characteristic of him throughout his career that he was tirelessly experimenting to improve the quality of whatever he produced.