Unmasking the War Profiteers — An Examination of the Crimes and Rise of the Arms Giant Krupp
Political Economy Group of the Proletarian Liberation Struggle Association
Krupp — this name is not unfamiliar to us; it is renowned worldwide for its production of arms. For two hundred years, the weapons manufactured by Krupp have supplied the armies of the Kingdom of Prussia, the German Empire, and Nazi Germany, as well as many exports overseas. There have always been many discussions about Krupp: some say Krupp is “diligent.” The generations of effort by the Krupp family transformed it from a poorly managed, obscure steelmaking workshop into a wealthy and renowned industrial empire. Others claim Krupp is a “good boss” who cares for workers. Krupp’s enterprises strictly adhere to an eight-hour workday, and its workers not only enjoy lifelong job security but also benefit from free medical insurance and pensions provided by the company. Although accidents sometimes occur, orphans and widows can always receive substantial compensation and permanent livelihood guarantees. Around the factory, there are houses, shops, schools, parks, and playgrounds built by Krupp for workers and their families, almost like a paradise on earth. No matter how difficult the days, Krupp always upholds its welfare system. And all of this, even Krupp’s very management, is “for the workers.” Others say Krupp is a “mentor” of China’s “modern military” development. Unlike other foreign arms dealers, Krupp does not simply sell guns and cannons to China; it also “teaches fishing,” dispatching numerous instructors and technicians to China, teaching artillery techniques and manufacturing technology, building a bridge for China’s backward and isolated society to learn Western technology, and contributing to the Qing government’s national defense against imperialist aggression. Still others say Krupp is a symbol of “German national spirit.” It has gone beyond a simple enterprise and has become intertwined with national interests. Throughout modern German history, Krupp’s presence is everywhere. Krupp has always supplied the best quality coal, steel, and artillery to the motherland. Even during the fascist period, Krupp’s actions were sometimes “excessive,” but only out of a sense of responsibility to the country and obedience to orders.
Indeed, opinions are lively and diverse! But these viewpoints all seem quite strange: how can parasites claim to have built their wealth through thrift? When did capitalists ever have a compassionate heart? Would colonial robbers care about the independence of oppressed nations? How can the decayed, reactionary exploiting class care about nations and the homeland beyond their own interests? If common sense tells us otherwise, then doubts inevitably arise in everyone’s mind: what is the true face of Krupp? To answer this question, let’s open Krupp’s rise to wealth and take a closer look —
Prehistory: Land Speculation and Early Arms Manufacturing
The history of the “Krupp Dynasty” can be traced back to 1587. That year, merchant Arnt Krupp arrived in Essen, a city in northwestern Germany — which, centuries later, became famously known as “Krupp City.” At that time, the Black Death, which had ravaged Europe, was about to return to the town. To escape the plague, many families had to leave their homes. However, Arnt Krupp, a cunning and shrewd merchant, sensed a rare business opportunity. He quickly took action, buying up these families’ properties at low prices. Unsurprisingly, through land speculation, he soon made a fortune and became one of the wealthiest men in Essen.
After Arnt Krupp’s death, his son Anton Krupp took over the family business. It was 1624, during the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), which was sweeping across Germany. Not only were there conflicts among the old and new religious princes within Germany, but Europe’s great powers were also embroiled in chaos, with vast rural and urban areas ravaged, and the people suffering immensely. “For an entire generation, Germany was ravaged repeatedly by unprecedented lawless and disorderly troops. Burning, looting, whipping, raping, slaughtering… material destruction and population decline were endless.”[1] Over thirty years, the population of the Holy Roman Empire sharply decreased by about eight million. Yet, for Anton Krupp, new business opportunities arose. As gunpowder and firearms technology matured, the role of guns in warfare became increasingly important, and the protracted Thirty Years’ War greatly expanded the demand for firearms. During the war, Anton Krupp sold about a thousand guns annually, beginning a centuries-long history of Krupp’s arms production.
It is evident that at the very beginning of its rise, Krupp’s wealth was built on plagues, wars, and disasters. After Anton Krupp, “a gunshot meant gold,” and this became the creed of successive Krupp generations.
The Rise of Prussian Militarism and the Development of German Capitalism
After the Thirty Years’ War, the Hohenzollern family, ruling Brandenburg and Prussia, rapidly rose from northern Germany. The foundation of Brandenburg-Prussia’s rule was the Junker aristocracy east of the Elbe River. The Hohenzollerns sought to establish a standing army and, centered on this, built a centralized autocratic state; the Junkers also aimed to maintain their serfdom by strengthening military and political institutions. Driven by mutual interests, the two quickly reached an agreement. The Hohenzollerns recognized the Junkers’ right to demand corvée labor and rent from peasants, and to exercise police and judicial authority over them; in turn, the Junkers agreed to the Hohenzollerns’ collection of military taxes from peasants and urban residents to form a standing army, with many Junker families serving as officers in the Prussian army. Based on this, the militarized Prussian state gradually took shape. In the 18th century, Prussia fought repeatedly against France and Austria, and participated three times in the partition of Poland. Under Frederick I, Prussia’s territory ranked tenth in Europe, and its population thirteenth (about two million), while its standing army reached 85,000, ranking fourth in Europe, with the kingdom’s income of seven million talers, of which six million went to support the military. The conscription scope extended even to other German states, with soldiers serving up to 25 years. Under Frederick II, the army expanded further to over 200,000 soldiers, with military expenses accounting for four-fifths of the state’s total expenditure. When the Prussian kingdom was established in 1701, its area was only about 110,000 square kilometers; after a century of external expansion, its territory grew to 305,000 square kilometers, nearly doubling. The enormous war machine caused huge military expenditures, and to increase state revenue, the rulers implemented a series of mercantilist policies, such as protective tariffs, tax benefits for enterprises, and subsidies, which promoted the development of German capitalism to some extent. Meanwhile, frequent wars brought continuous and lucrative military orders from the state.
In this context, Krupp transformed from a feudal merchant and industrialist into a modern bourgeoisie, gradually building its vast capital empire. The military orders from the Prussian-German state played a crucial role in this process. From the 18th century onward, Krupp began producing shells for Prussia with subsidies from Berlin, and the family’s business and assets continued to grow. As a military supplier, Krupp closely integrated with Germany’s militarist tradition, and to some extent, it can be said that Prussian-German militarism created Krupp’s capital empire, which in turn helped forge the German Empire. We will see this relationship repeatedly in Krupp’s subsequent history spanning over a hundred years.
The French bourgeois revolution at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th also influenced the development of German capitalism. Under the impact of the French Revolution, widespread peasant uprisings and artisan protests occurred across Germany, striking blows to feudal serfdom and guild systems. Under Napoleon’s rule, the French-occupied left bank of the Rhine implemented a series of bourgeois reforms, confiscating and auctioning church lands, abolishing feudal privileges, obligations, and guild systems; on the right bank, the various German states merged into the Rhine Confederation, which somewhat alleviated the feudal fragmentation. Additionally, Napoleon’s Continental Blockade policy against Britain eliminated the highly competitive British goods from the European market. Under pressure from anti-feudal struggles and Napoleon’s rule, Prussia was forced to carry out agricultural “reforms,” abolishing peasants’ personal dependence on landlords and allowing them to pay redemption money to end feudal obligations. This provided a pool of free labor for capitalist production. Under the combined influence of these factors, German capitalism developed more rapidly in the early 19th century.
The Foundation of the Empire: Steel, Wheels, and Cannon-Building
The mid-19th century was a period of economic and political unification in Germany, and also when Krupp began to prosper. Wars of the monarchy spurred the rapid development of armaments and railway industries. Krupp profited immensely from manufacturing cannons and train wheels during this wave. With Krupp’s new artillery, Prussia first defeated Austria, which was vying for leadership in unifying Germany, then crushed the seemingly invincible “continental hegemon” — France, ultimately achieving German unification in 1871.
In 1810, Friedrich Krupp inherited the family estate. At that time, Germany’s most advanced steel casting technology was monopolized by Britain, and the Continental blockade made it nearly impossible for Britain’s steel to reach the continent. Napoleon offered a high prize of 4,000 francs for anyone who could replicate British craftsmanship. This generous reward piqued Friedrich Krupp’s interest, and in his second year of inheriting the estate, he founded the Krupp Steelworks. However, Friedrich Krupp seemed destined to miss out on this bounty: the glorious Napoleonic Empire collapsed within four years, and his steel trial work had not succeeded by his death in 1826. By the time his son Alfred Krupp took over, the steel plant was on the brink of bankruptcy.
The industrial revolution starting in the 1830s and the German Customs Union established in 1834 saved Krupp. The application of machinery, the construction of steamships, and the building of railways greatly increased the demand for steel. The Customs Union united 18 principal German states, covering three-quarters of the population and two-thirds of the territory, abolishing internal tariffs and establishing a unified external tariff system. The steel market expanded unprecedentedly. After the union’s formation, Krupp’s steel production increased fivefold.
In the 1850s and 1860s, Krupp’s development accelerated further. Although the 1848 revolution shook feudalism and the Prussian government promoted agricultural reforms in 1850, opening broader space for capitalism, its failure allowed the feudal remnants to persist and even led to the dominance of the German unification movement. The revolution’s aftermath saw Junker aristocrats gradually becoming bourgeois and increasingly colluding with the large bourgeoisie. The top-down “reform” path of capitalist development left many peasants in semi-serfdom, suffering from dual exploitation of capitalism and feudalism, severely impoverished, and hindering the expansion of the German domestic market. The ambitions of the bourgeoisie to seize markets and the greed of Junker landowners to expand estates were closely linked, making Prussian militarism more aggressive than ever.
Under Bismarck’s reactionary “Iron and Blood” policy, the Prussian government sought to unify Germany through force and dominate Europe. The urgent need for military expansion led to a surge in military orders and a railway-building boom across Germany. All this promoted Krupp’s prosperity: from 1850 to 1870, the length of German railways doubled from 6,000 to 18,876 kilometers, and freight volume increased 27.1 times. In 1851, Krupp invented seamless train wheels and later obtained a patent. These wheels were more durable than welded ones, greatly increasing train speeds, with trains equipped with such wheels reaching speeds of 60 km/h from 30 km/h. Krupp’s new wheels not only sold domestically but also monopolized the international market; at that time, nearly all railways in the United States used Krupp wheels. Over twenty years, these wheels brought huge profits, but Krupp was not satisfied: it sought products more directly serving war — large guns with higher reliability, accuracy, rate of fire, and destructive power. To secure huge national orders, Krupp immediately began developing new artillery. In the 1850s, Krupp’s after-loading cast steel cannons were successfully tested, and Alfred Krupp promptly presented them as gifts to the Prussian court. Although these new cannons did not initially attract the king’s attention, they gained favor with William I, the “King of Guns,” who had participated in the bloody suppression of the 1848 revolution. Soon, they became “an instant hit.” In 1859, William I, then regent, eagerly ordered 300 new cannons. Over the next ten years, during the three “Iron and Blood” dynastic wars, Krupp’s cannons demonstrated their power. They destroyed Danish, Austrian, and French armies, all still using outdated bronze muzzle-loading cannons. Especially in the Battle of Sedan during the Franco-Prussian War, Krupp’s artillery bombarded relentlessly, leading to the surrender of 86,000 French troops, and even Napoleon III was captured. The Battle of Sedan cleared the last obstacle to German unification and instantly made Krupp’s cannons famous, leading to their export to Russia and Turkey.
The Formation of Monopolistic Capitalism in Germany and Krupp’s Corporate Consolidation
After the Franco-Prussian War, German capitalism transitioned into monopoly stage, with industrial output rapidly becoming the second largest in the world. The growing ambition to acquire overseas colonies greatly strengthened German militarism’s aggressiveness. During this period, Krupp quickly developed into a powerful monopoly organization, producing countless weapons and equipment for German militarism.
Through the “Frankfurt Treaty,” Germany seized Alsace-Lorraine from France and received 5 billion francs in war reparations. The massive war reparations fueled industrial growth, and the acquisition of key European mining and industrial regions, along with the formation of a unified German national market, the new imperial currency, and protective tariffs, all promoted Germany’s rapid industrial development: in just four years after the war, more railways, factories, and mines were built than in the previous 25 years, marking the completion of Germany’s industrial revolution in the 1880s. The unprecedented speed of industrial development greatly enhanced the concentration of German capital and production. Especially after the series of economic crises since 1873, many small and medium enterprises either went bankrupt or were absorbed. Thus, in the last thirty years of the 19th century, monopolistic organizations rapidly formed and expanded in Germany.
The enormous capital of these monopolies enabled Germany to invest heavily in emerging sectors, adopting the latest scientific and technological achievements from the outset. With the rise of machinery, electrical, and chemical industries, German industry advanced even more rapidly. By the 1880s, Germany’s industrial output surpassed France, ranking third in the world; by the early 20th century, it surpassed Britain, becoming the second-largest after the United States. However, Germany’s increasing economic strength was sharply contrasted with its limited raw material sources, product markets, and investment opportunities. As a latecomer imperialist power, Germany only sat at the table of global colonization in the 1880s and 1890s. Historically, due to long-term fragmentation, Germany had been unable to carry out large-scale colonial activities. Although in the late 19th and early 20th centuries Germany rapidly caught up and seized territories from West Africa to the Samoa Islands, these “appetizers” could no longer satisfy the voracious beast of German imperialism. It dreamed of defeating the decayed British Empire and taking over its vast colonial empire. The Junkers and monopolist capitalists knew: to achieve this, the only way was war! Therefore, after the Franco-Prussian War, German militarism not only did not die down but instead became ten, hundred times more frantic. From 1872 to 1912, Germany’s military spending increased by 335%. By 1913, Germany had 760,000 active troops equipped with new weapons, and through expansion plans, the standing army was further increased to 870,000. On the eve of the war, the Allied powers’ military budgets exceeded 4.7 billion marks, while Germany and Austria-Hungary’s combined budget reached 14 billion marks.
In this wave of monopolization and militarization at the turn of the 20th century, Krupp expanded rapidly. In 1873, when a global economic crisis swept across Europe, Krupp, backed by a 30 million mark loan from the Prussian National Bank, not only survived the crisis but also acquired Spanish mines and Dutch shipping companies, becoming Europe’s largest and wealthiest company. Krupp profited immensely from the arms race among nations. By the late 1880s, Krupp sold arms to 46 hostile and warring countries, with military manufacturing accounting for 50% of its total business. In 1887, Alfred Krupp died. When he took over the business in 1826, Krupp had only five employees; by then, Krupp had become Germany’s largest private company and the world’s biggest industrial enterprise, with 75,000 employees. During Alfred’s era, Krupp produced 24,576 large cannons, of which 10,666 were supplied to the German government, and the remaining 13,910 were exported. The urgent demand for a stronger navy to compete with Britain also drove Krupp’s expansion into shipbuilding. In 1906, to respond to Britain’s new armored battleship “Dreadnought,” Germany decided to build four dreadnoughts annually, along with a substantial number of cruisers and torpedo ships. In 1912, Germany passed a new naval law to expand its battleship fleet. In 1890, Krupp invented a special nickel steel capable of manufacturing ship guns and armor plates. In 1892, Krupp acquired Glessen Company to start producing naval guns and armor plates. In 1896, Krupp also acquired Kiel Germania Factory, which began producing U-boats that would sink countless Allied ships in both World Wars.
Through so-called “vertical integration,” acquiring mines domestically and abroad and merging with other companies, Krupp combined coal mining, metallurgy, machinery manufacturing, and arms production, controlling the entire process from raw material supply to product processing. By the eve of World War I, Krupp’s conglomerate had become the dominant force in Germany’s military industry, selling weapons to 52 other countries. The enormous profits Krupp made even made Wilhelm II himself a shareholder. In 1902, Alfred Krupp’s son Friedrich Alfred Krupp committed suicide amid a scandal of homosexuality, leaving the Krupp family without heirs. In 1906, Wilhelm II personally arranged a marriage for Friedrich’s daughter Berta, choosing Prussian diplomat Gustav as the groom. According to the royal wedding announcement, Gustav was granted the surname Krupp. It also stipulated that the Krupp family name and ownership of the company would be inherited by the eldest son.
Krupp and Li Hongzhang
As German imperialism aggressively expanded abroad, vying for “land under the sun,” Krupp also vigorously exported goods and capital overseas. In the East, its most enthusiastic “old customer” was the famous Chinese comprador and traitor Li Hongzhang. With Li Hongzhang’s help, Krupp plundered countless wealth from the Chinese people.
In 1867, although the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom rebellion had just been suppressed, the remnants of the Taiping Army and various ethnic uprisings still shook China, impacting the corrupt and reactionary Qing government. The Qing ruling class was terrified and hurriedly gathered all counter-revolutionary forces at home and abroad, attempting to completely crush the revolutionary movement. In the vast areas north of the Yangtze River, the East and West “Nian armies” fought across provinces, repeatedly defeating Qing troops, capturing the fierce Huai Army general Guo Songlin, killing the leaders Peng Yuju and Zhang Shushan of the Xiang and Huai armies, and causing chaos for Li Hongzhang, the imperial envoy responsible for “supervising suppression.” Li Hongzhang exhausted all efforts but could only pin hope on the new weapons supplied by foreign powers: he invited British and French instructors to train armies, equipped them with Russian guns, and secretly bought Krupp’s cannons to arm the Huai Army. During the bloody suppression of the Nian uprising, Li Hongzhang tasted the sweetness of new weapons and exclaimed that Krupp’s cannons were “precise and unmatched”! The Franco-Prussian War of 1870 further deepened Li Hongzhang’s admiration for Krupp’s cannons. Consequently, in the second year of the war, Li Hongzhang immediately ordered an additional 328 Krupp cannons. Between 1871 and 1877, the Huai Army and its artillery units purchased a total of 114 Krupp guns.
Having acquired large cannons, it was natural to master artillery techniques. To this end, Li Hongzhang reached an agreement with Krupp: China would continue to purchase Krupp’s cannons, and Krupp would send instructors to teach artillery techniques and provide military training for Chinese students. During the late Qing period, Krupp dispatched over a hundred “technicians” to China. The earliest, Reiner, stayed in China for nearly thirty years, earning the government’s third-class treasure star for his “faithful character” and “relentless” instruction of soldiers. After the First Sino-Japanese War, he was transferred to Weihaiwei to assist the Beiyang Fleet. Ironically, the “assistance” turned into an act of treachery when Reiner advised Ding Ruchang to surrender to Japan during the Battle of Weihaiwei, which Ding refused sternly. In 1876, seven officers of the Huai Army, including Bian Changsheng, Liu Fangpu, and Zha Lianbiao, went to Germany for military training. In 1888, Li Hongzhang selected five students from the Beiyang Military Academy to study in Germany; among them was Duan Qirui, a prominent warlord of the Anhui clique and a proxy of Japanese imperialism. According to Krupp’s sales records, from 1871 to 1895, China purchased 1,942 large cannons from Krupp, accounting for 13.8% of Krupp’s total exports of such weapons. Among these, the cannons ordered by Li Hongzhang totaled 1,666, making up 85.8% of all purchases, costing 10.822 million marks. In 1886, Li Hongzhang ordered the construction of the flagship ships Dingyuan, Zhenyuan, and Jiyuan, with Krupp manufacturing the keels, armor steel plates, main guns, and secondary guns. In 1888, Li Hongzhang signed a 2 million mark military supplies contract with Krupp to defend Weihaiwei and Dalian Bay. In 1889, Li ordered additional large cannons for “coastal defense,” totaling 5.5 million marks, the largest trade transaction between Krupp and China. The 13 modern coastal artillery batteries at the forts of Lushun, Weihai, Liugong Island, and Rishima were all equipped with Krupp cannons.
For a “big customer” like Li Hongzhang, Krupp naturally paid special attention. The old Krupp (Alfred and Friedrich Alfred Krupp) maintained close relations with Li Hongzhang, though they never met in person, they had long been “soul friends,” exchanging letters frequently and sending gifts: in 1876, Li Hongzhang was promoted to Grand Scholar of Wenhua Palace, and Krupp immediately sent a congratulatory letter, praising Li Hongzhang as “Bismarck of China,” attaching photos of Krupp’s latest land warfare cannons to attract him. “Knowing gratitude but not repaying it is un gentlemanly,” and in return for such courtesy, Li Hongzhang naturally “returned the favor.” In 1880, Li Hongzhang promised Krupp representatives that the Huai Army would henceforth only use Krupp’s cannons. In 1896, Li Hongzhang attended the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II in Russia and took the opportunity to tour Europe and America. When passing through Germany, Li Hongzhang was invited by Krupp to visit “the Iron Chancellor” Bismarck, then went to Krupp’s estate and inspected Krupp’s arsenal. To welcome his “close friend,” Krupp generously funded a bronze statue of Li Hongzhang, intended as a birthday gift for his 80th birthday. The statue was “cast in pure copper, decorated with gold leaf”: Li Hongzhang wears a top hat with a flower crest, a royal yellow mandarin jacket bestowed by the emperor, and holds a sword, looking quite “majestic.” The inscription on the base read — “Meritorious deeds of a hero in times of peace, enduring and still shining brightly,” which was almost embarrassingly flattering.“Arrogant, wearing a hairpin; shining brightly, hanging a gold seal on the chest; majestic, with high rank and high salary; the gloomy and dark — the Yellow Spring Road is near!”\[2\] Li Hongzhang dedicated the blood of the Chinese people to Krupp, arming his Huai Army and Beiyang Fleet to the teeth. This big comprador, traitor to the Han, thought he had succeeded, believing that with these two counter-revolutionary armed forces as his backing, he could rest easy and enjoy wealth forever. However, he and his henchmen ultimately could not escape a fate of complete destruction: during the First Sino-Japanese War, the Huai Army commander Zhao Huaiye abandoned the city and fled; the Dalian battery, equipped with the “latest and most powerful” weapons, fell into Japanese hands almost without resistance; the “Seven Great Commanders” of the Huai Army personally led thousands to defend Lushun, known as “Japan’s first fortress,” which fell within a day; after the Battle of Weihaiwei, the Beiyang Fleet, which Li Hongzhang had painstakingly built for twenty years, was completely destroyed; in 1901, before the bronze statue gifted by Krupp was even completed, Li Hongzhang died in fear amid patriotic anti-Russian waves and widespread scorn across the country; even this bronze statue was smashed to pieces by the Chinese people who had risen after liberation.
It is evident that capitalist and imperialist colonial robbers have never wished for China to develop into an independent and autonomous capitalist country. Krupp’s sale of arms and dispatching of instructors to China were not to help the Qing government strengthen national defense. As Li Hongzhang himself admitted, he bought foreign guns and artillery, and formed reactionary armed forces, “merely to boost morale, not daring to confront the great enemy.” Whether it was Krupp, the German imperialists, or other imperialist powers, their sole purpose in providing so-called “technology” or “talent” was to arm the Qing court, which served foreign masters by exploiting the people and suppressing them, so as to perpetuate the semi-colonial and semi-feudal social order in China.
Krupp in the First World War
With the strong support of monopolistic capital like Krupp, Germany was the first among imperialist countries to complete war preparations and launched the world war. During the war, Krupp made enormous profits. However, it must be pointed out that besides supplying Germany, Krupp’s weapons and patents were also sold to Britain and other Allied powers, which continued to profit from Krupp during the war. Krupp’s weapons not only slaughtered the peoples of Britain, France, and Russia, but also slaughtered its own people—Germans! For Krupp, as long as it was profitable, all considerations of “nation” or “ethnicity” were thrown aside; as long as there was money—whether in francs or pounds—they took everything. Krupp was not a “patriotic merchant” but, on the contrary, Germany’s most vicious enemy.
On August 1, 1914, Germany, citing the assassination of the Austro-Hungarian heir, declared war on Russia, and on the 3rd, on France. The long-anticipated world war finally erupted. Stimulated by the war, German national monopoly capitalism reached a new peak: the government established central agencies controlled by monopolistic capitalists responsible for distributing government contracts, managing military supplies, requisitioning and allocating industrial raw materials, setting up credit banks for war bonds and loans to arms companies, and enacting laws for forced cartelization, compelling small and medium enterprises to join monopolistic organizations. To fulfill huge military orders, Krupp employed 180,000 workers and staff during the war, producing most of Germany’s artillery (including giant howitzers destroying French and Belgian cities) and warships for the German navy, as well as submarines for “unrestricted submarine warfare.” In 1916, Germany seized Belgian industry and forcibly relocated Belgian civilians to the Ruhr as labor. In 1918, Gustav Krupp was declared a war criminal by the Allies, but he was never tried.
While profiting from arms supplies to its own country, Krupp also maintained business relations with foreign and even enemy countries. During the pre-war arms race, almost all ship armor manufacturers in various countries—Britain, France, Russia, the US, Italy—used Krupp patents. In 1902, Krupp signed a contract with Britain’s Vickers company to supply its patent fuzes. During the war, Vickers produced 123 million shells using Krupp patents, paying Krupp a shilling per shell, and Krupp’s patent-marked bullets were also used to fire at German soldiers. Although wartime payments to Germany were suspended under the “Enemy Trade Law,” Vickers still recorded each patent fee in Krupp’s accounts, which were fully paid off after the war in 1926. Krupp also supplied machine guns to Vickers, which became standard British weapons during the war.
The war inflicted brutal military labor on the German people: adult men were conscripted or forced to work in munitions factories, with workdays often exceeding twelve hours. Due to the Allied naval blockade and a decline in agricultural labor, food supplies in Germany sharply decreased. By late 1916, meat rations were only 31% of peacetime levels, dropping to 12% in 1918. Fish were completely rationed in 1917, and cheese, butter, grains, and eggs were less than 20% of peacetime rations. After a poor potato harvest in autumn 1916, the winter of 1916–1917 became known as the “Winter of the Cabbage,” with people forced to eat turnips, previously used to feed pigs. During the war, over 6.3 million Germans died from war, hunger, poverty, and disease. The populace was starving and destitute in the streets, while Krupp’s wealth tripled. It is estimated that Krupp’s wartime profits were at least 800 million marks, equal to the total profit earned over the previous twenty years of peace.
Krupp’s Rapid Revival Supported by American Monopolies and German Militarism
Germany suffered a crushing defeat in WWI, and its war-ravaged economy collapsed under the brutal terms of the “Treaty of Versailles,” with the rising tide of proletarian revolution further worsening the dire situation. However, the influx of international capital led by American monopolies quickly revived the German economy. Under the revenge ambitions of the German monopolist bourgeoisie and the demands of the Allied imperialists to rearm Germany, Krupp, although officially banned from arms production, secretly developed and sold weapons for several years after the war. Later, under the open approval of international imperialism, Krupp’s arms industry was shamelessly restored.
Due to the outbreak of the November Revolution and the entry of US capital into the war effort, Germany was defeated. The exploitative “Versailles Treaty” stripped Germany of large territories including Alsace-Lorraine, most of its iron and zinc mines, and one-third of its coal and steel output; it deprived Germany of all colonies and overseas investments, and imposed huge physical reparations and war debts. In 1919, German industrial output plummeted to only one-third of pre-war levels, regressing to the 1888 level. Even the once-thriving Krupp empire was paralyzed. Under global anti-war pressure, the Allies banned Krupp from producing arms. Although Gustav Krupp declared slogans like “We produce everything!” and tried to shift to consumer goods, Krupp’s losses mounted year after year, and it dismissed 70,000 workers. Its Essen plant was occupied by Ruhr workers’ Red Army and French and Belgian troops in 1920 and 1923.
However, with US monopolist support, Germany’s economy soon emerged from postwar depression into a period of relative stability from 1924 to 1929. Postwar, the US aimed to revive the German economy to turn it into a profitable market and investment destination, and to make German industry a vassal of US monopolies. Britain also sought to restore Germany as its largest market and to limit France’s dominance on the continent. Meanwhile, the US, Britain, and France aimed to rearm Germany economically and militarily, opening markets in Russia and using German militarism to oppose the Soviet Union. Under US leadership, the Allies in 1924 passed the “Dawes Plan,” providing 800 million marks in loans to Germany. This plan opened the way for US and British capital into Germany and Europe. As US capital flowed in, interest in reparations waned, and by 1929, the “Young Plan” reduced reparations to 12 billion marks over 59 years, with a short-term debt of 30 billion marks. The US, seeking to settle its war debts, and Britain and France, dissatisfied with increasing physical reparations, pushed through the Young Plan. By 1932, Germany had paid only a fraction of the reparations, and the total foreign loans and investments from 1924 to 1930 reached 32.6 billion marks. Using foreign funds and advanced technology, German industry, under the guise of “rationalization,” recovered to prewar levels by 1927 and surpassed Britain and France by 1929.
Under the demand to remilitarize Germany, Krupp’s arms empire was rapidly revived with the tacit approval of the Allies. Krupp also received support from the German government, which secretly preserved its research on military production. Chancellor Joseph Wirth secretly arranged for Krupp to continue designing artillery and tanks. In 1921, Krupp acquired the Swedish Bofors company and secretly sold weapons to the Netherlands, Denmark, and others. In 1922, Krupp established a subsidiary in the Netherlands to sell submarine designs to countries including the Netherlands, Spain, Turkey, Finland, and Japan. By 1926, Krupp officially gained recognition in the international military industry and began producing tanks openly.
Hitler’s Backers, the New War Makers, and Profiteers
The period of relative stability of German capitalism ended abruptly with the global economic crisis of 1929–1932, which dealt a severe blow to Germany. Society and class struggle intensified sharply, and the German monopolist bourgeoisie could no longer maintain control through the so-called “democratic system.” They demanded open violence and the establishment of fascist rule. With the financial backing of monopolistic capital, especially Krupp and other heavy and military industrialists, Hitler and the Nazi Party seized power. Through Hitler’s puppet regime, Krupp and other monopolies gained direct control over Germany’s politics and economy. The fascist war machine driven by Krupp once again ignited a new world war. During the war, Krupp committed countless crimes against humanity.
In 1929, an unprecedented global economic crisis erupted in the US, quickly affecting Germany. The German economy, supported by foreign capital, plunged: industrial production fell by 40.6%, with capital goods down by 53%, regressing to late 19th-century levels; agricultural income dropped by 30%; exports and imports decreased by about 70%; the gold reserves of the treasury shrank by 80%. During the intense shock of the crisis, hundreds of thousands of small and medium enterprises went bankrupt, and even some monopolistic organizations suffered. At the worst, industrial capacity was only one-third, and unemployment soared to 6–8 million, nearly half of the total workforce. The bourgeois government shifted the burden of the crisis onto workers: wages were cut, taxes increased by billions of marks, and unemployment benefits were drastically reduced. Workers’ real incomes fell to 64% of pre-war levels.
The economic crisis worsened Germany’s social contradictions and class struggles, raising mass consciousness and triggering strikes and protests. Under the “cloud of revolution,” the German monopolist bourgeoisie panicked. They clung desperately to fascism as a “lifeline,” demanding the establishment of open military dictatorship. Due to conflicting interests within monopolistic capital, the German bourgeoisie split into two factions regarding fascist policies: one centered around Deutsche Bank and I.G. Farben, comprising processing and export industrialists, aimed to avoid damaging relations with Britain, France, and Belgium and initially targeted the Soviet Union and the East; the other, composed of Krupp, Thyssen, Kiel, Fieger, and other Ruhr heavy and military industrial giants, formed the “Steel Trosk,” the most aggressive faction, openly opposing the Treaty of Versailles, reparations, and the occupation of the Rhineland and Saar. They demanded immediate rearmament and the implementation of “revenge” plans—recovering colonies, marching east, dominating Europe, and seizing world hegemony. Their agent was Hitler and the Nazi Party.
Adolf Hitler, a young drifter wandering Vienna streets, an obscure Austrian corporal in WWI, a prisoner jailed after the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, a “foreigner” who only obtained German citizenship in 1932, became the darling of German monopolist capital. In 1930, the Ruhr coal syndicate decided to donate five fenings per ton of coal sold to fund the Nazi Party, accumulating six million marks annually. In January 1932, Thyssen held a secret meeting with hundreds of monopolists at the Düsseldorf Industrial Club to support Hitler’s rise. In July of that year, the Nazi Party gained 13.7 million votes (an increase of 2.4 million), becoming the largest party in the Reichstag, while the Communist Party also gained 700,000 votes. In the subsequent elections four months later, the Nazi vote share nearly vanished, while the Communist Party gained another 700,000 votes. The shifting class forces greatly alarmed German monopolies; Krupp, Siemens, Fieger, and others hurriedly petitioned President Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as Chancellor. In January 1933, under Thyssen’s mediation, Hitler held a secret meeting with former Chancellor Papen, who agreed to participate in Hitler’s government, and a bank group led by Fieger was established to fund the Nazi Party. Soon after, Deutsche Bank and I.G. Farben joined this bank group. On January 30, Hindenburg appointed Hitler Chancellor. Just 28 days later, on February 27, Hitler staged the infamous Reichstag Fire, arresting and killing over 200,000 communists and progressives, then banning the Communist Party. Between May and July, trade unions, Social Democrats, and other bourgeois parties were dissolved, and Hitler declared the Nazi Party the only legal party. In August, Hindenburg died, and Hitler assumed both Chancellor and President, establishing fascist dictatorship.
From 1933 to 1939, Krupp contributed 12 million marks to the Nazi Party’s funds. In 1933, Gustav Krupp and Nazi agent Martin Bormann organized the “Adolf Hitler German Trade and Industry Foundation.” By 1945, German monopolists had provided a total of 700 million marks to the Nazi Party through this foundation. Gustav’s son, Alfred Krupp, joined the SS and Nazi Party in 1931 and 1938, respectively, rising to colonel in the SS. Krupp’s generous sponsorship was fully rewarded under fascist rule. After Hitler’s rise, Nazi Germany aggressively implemented state monopoly capitalism, establishing a series of state agencies controlled by monopolists to intervene in and regulate the economy. In 1933, Hitler created the “German Economic General Committee” to oversee the national economy, with Gustav Krupp appointed chairman. That same year, Krupp was also appointed chairman of the “German Industrial Empire Union,” gaining full control after dismissing the board of directors. In 1937, Krupp father and son were designated “war economy leaders.” With the support of state monopoly capitalism, Hitler rapidly militarized the German economy, aiming to escape economic crisis and prepare for a new war. Raw materials, labor, funds, and equipment were prioritized for military production. By the eve of the outbreak of WWII in 1939, German military expenditure reached 90 billion marks, about three-fifths of the national budget and one-quarter of national income. During this period, military production surged 11.5 times. New military orders flooded Krupp’s factories: in 1933, Krupp received orders to produce 135 Type 1 tanks, which soon supported Franco’s forces in Spain. During the 1930s, Krupp developed and produced the 88mm anti-aircraft gun, a main artillery piece of the German army during the war, and Hitler’s “secret weapon”—the giant railway gun. From 1934 until the war, Krupp supplied the German navy with 130 submarines. Krupp’s machinery was fully operational again, and its workforce increased from 35,000 to 112,000. Under fascist terror and war, Krupp’s empire flourished again. It is estimated that between 1932 and 1937, Krupp’s profits reached 1.23 billion marks annually. From 1932/33 to 1938/39, Krupp’s military orders increased nearly 15 times, and net profits nearly 18 times. In 1939, Krupp’s share capital was 60 million marks, with its actual fixed assets value exceeding one billion marks.
Armed with Krupp’s money and weapons—cannons, tanks, warships, submarines—fascist Germany finally launched a new war. In September 1939, fascist invaders brazenly invaded Poland, igniting WWII. During the war, Germany’s military-industrial and state monopoly capitalism reached its peak. From 1939 to 1945, German military expenditure totaled 622 billion marks, accounting for 92% of the national budget. By forcibly merging small and medium enterprises and even lower-level monopolies, a handful of giant monopolies strengthened their dominance. In 1943, Hitler issued the “Krupp Law,” transforming Krupp from a joint-stock company into a sole proprietorship, with all assets controlled by Alfred Krupp, who also received significant tax reductions. Due to the reactionary appeasement policies of Britain, France, and other imperialist countries, by the end of 1942, Nazi Germany (and its allies and puppet states) controlled vast regions from the English Channel to the Ukrainian plains, from the Sahara to the Arctic Circle, with much of Europe under fascist rule. The fascists looted all resources—grain, industrial products, gold, mines, banks—in occupied territories. Krupp was allowed to “take over” foreign factories in occupied areas, including Rothschild’s tractor factory in France, Skoda in Czechoslovakia, and the Molotov Steel Plant in Ukraine. Alfred Krupp was even awarded second and first class “War Merit Cross” medals for forcibly relocating foreign factories to Germany. By early 1945, Krupp owned 110 large domestic enterprises and 41 foreign enterprises, becoming Germany’s largest wartime military supplier. Its own and controlled enterprises produced 10% of Germany’s steel, coal, and coke.
Due to the conscription of skilled workers and domestic labor shortages, Nazi Germany deported over ten million foreign prisoners and civilians, including persecuted Jews, to forced slave labor. In 1942, Alfred Krupp established the Bersa factory near Auschwitz, renting Jewish women from the SS at four marks per day for production. Krupp even owned its own concentration camp, imprisoning tens of thousands of prisoners from across Europe. During the war, about 250,000 workers and staff worked in Krupp factories across the country, including nearly 100,000 foreign workers (70,000) and prisoners of war (23,000). Postwar Nuremberg trials revealed that over ten thousand men, women, and children were murdered or died unnaturally due to hunger and abuse in Krupp’s enterprises. A Krupp doctor admitted that in one Krupp factory, sanitation was so poor that only ten children’s toilets served 1,200 workers, with rampant pests and disease. Poor housing, limited and low-quality food, overwork, and exhaustion intensified workers’ suffering.
During Nazi rule, imperialist wars of aggression cost Germany seven million lives, while Krupp’s profits reached 2 billion marks.
The Hundred-Legged Worm: Krupp’s Postwar Resurrection
Under the anti-fascist struggle of the Soviet Union led by Stalin and the worldwide people’s resistance, Nazi Germany—the once arrogant “Thousand-Year Empire”—began its rapid collapse shortly after the Battle of Stalingrad. On April 16, 1945, the Soviet Red Army entered Berlin. On April 30, Hitler committed suicide in the dark, damp “Führerbunker” beneath Berlin. On May 8, Germany unconditionally surrendered.
After the war, the Ruhr area became part of the British occupation zone. Krupp’s factories were dismantled, and machinery was shipped across Europe as war reparations. At the Nuremberg Trials, Alfred Krupp was sentenced to twelve years in prison for plundering foreign resources and using slave labor. According to the Potsdam Conference decisions of the US, UK, and USSR, Krupp and other German monopolies had to be dissolved. However, Germany, ravaged by war and in ruins, was regarded by the US as an excellent investment market. The US also aimed to use economic penetration to achieve political control, turning Germany and all of Europe into a springboard for advancing eastward and confronting the Soviet Union. Therefore, US monopolies fiercely opposed the de-cartelization of Germany, actively promoting the revival of German monopolies through investments, loans, and aid. Over half of foreign investments in West Germany came from US capital. With active US support and encouragement from the West German government, industrial giants like Krupp, Thyssen, Fose, Siemens, and Flek quickly reestablished themselves.
Under US manipulation, Gustav Krupp was spared the Nuremberg trials due to “old age” and “poor health.” In 1951, Alfred Krupp, after serving only three years, was released early by US occupation authorities. Krupp’s assets worth 600 million marks were fully returned, and Krupp once again became one of Europe’s wealthiest companies. In 1953, Krupp signed the “Mellram Agreement” with the US, UK, and France, reaffirming the principles of Hitler’s “Krupp Law,” with Alfred Krupp as the sole owner. To deceive public opinion, the agreement also announced that Krupp’s raw material enterprises would be expropriated before 1960, but in reality, Krupp’s mining operations continued. Due to agreements with other monopolies, Krupp retained ownership of its enterprises, which were renamed but still controlled by Krupp’s family or agents. With Wall Street’s support, Krupp’s old structure was preserved. By 1959, Krupp became Europe’s fourth-largest company and the twelfth-largest in the world. Alfred Krupp became Europe’s richest man and one of the few billionaires globally.In 1954, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, West Germany, and other countries signed the Paris Agreement to remilitarize West Germany. According to the agreement, the US, UK, and France ended their occupation of West Germany but still maintained stationed troops on its territory; West Germany joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and was permitted to establish an army of 500,000 soldiers. In conjunction with the West German government’s military expansion policy aimed at preparing for revenge wars, Krupp quickly resumed its old practices and vigorously developed military production. In Bremen, Krupp jointly manufactured jet fighters with the American joint aircraft company; in North Rhine-Westphalia, Krupp owned a nuclear power plant capable of producing plutonium—an atomic bomb component; additionally, Krupp also collaborated with giants like Siemens and Fliick to form the so-called “Physical Science Research Institute,” preparing to manufacture atomic weapons.
During West Germany’s economic expansion into Asia, Africa, and Latin America, Krupp also played a significant role: in Southeast Asia, Krupp built steel plants in India, Pakistan, and Thailand; in the Middle East, it constructed large steel and oil refining plants in Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and other countries; in Latin America, it established copper smelting, steel, and diesel locomotive factories in Brazil, Venezuela, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, and others. By the early 1970s, Krupp was executing engineering contracts worth a total of 250 million US dollars across 22 countries, many of which were supported by “foreign aid” credits from the West German government.
The End of an Era: Shareholding and ThyssenKrupp
The good times did not last long. Due to blindly expanding industrial production and fixed capital investments, West Germany, which experienced rapid post-war economic growth, faced its first comprehensive overproduction crisis in 1966–1967. During this crisis, West German industrial production fell by 7.6%, fixed capital investments decreased by 10.4%, new industrial orders dropped by 25.8%, and employment reduced by over one million people. Under the heavy blow of the economic crisis, even Krupp’s mining and steel enterprises suffered losses. The blind expansion of credit, once masked by economic prosperity, left Krupp with enormous debts of about 1 billion US dollars. At that time, no bank in West Germany was willing to lend to Krupp. Only through emergency loans from the government did Krupp avoid collapse temporarily, but it still had to reorganize into a joint-stock company. In this sudden blow, Alfred Krupp was devastated and died of lung cancer in 1967. After his death, his son Arndt was forced to give up the inheritance of the company at the cost of a two-million-mark pension, and was also deprived of the right to use the “Krupp” name. In 1986, Arndt, heavily indebted, died under the influence of alcohol, leaving no heirs. The once-glorious Krupp family thus became history—“Like a bird that has eaten its fill and flown back to the forest, leaving only a vast white land behind, truly clean!”[3]
Although Krupp, as a monopoly capital, continued to exist, its fate was not much better. In 1999, Krupp AG merged with another German steel and coal monopoly giant, Thyssen. Like Krupp, Thyssen was also a notorious arms manufacturer. Its role in the rise of fascism in the 1930s has been mentioned earlier. The merged company mainly continued steel manufacturing, while also producing machinery, auto parts, trains, elevators, and other products, with 670 subsidiaries worldwide, ranking among the top ten steel companies globally by revenue. It also did not give up its old arms manufacturing business; its subsidiary “ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems” continued to produce submarines and warships for Germany, Israel, and other countries. However, under recent global economic crises, ThyssenKrupp’s situation rapidly deteriorated. In the first three quarters of 2019/20, ThyssenKrupp posted a net loss of nearly 2 billion euros, nearly ten times the loss of the previous year. The European steel division alone lost 700 million euros. In February 2020, ThyssenKrupp was forced to sell its most profitable elevator business—“ThyssenKrupp Elevator”—retaining only a 10% stake. In just two years, ThyssenKrupp announced layoffs three times, totaling 11,000 employees, about 10% of its workforce. From 2019 to 2023, ThyssenKrupp’s ranking among the “Fortune Global 500” fell from 215th to 330th (and even lower to 344th in 2022).
Over centuries, on the blood and bones of workers and the people, Krupp built its empire. However, in the end, not only did its family perish amid bleakness, but the capital empire it left behind also wavered under the heavy blows of economic crises. With the collapse of capitalism and imperialism, it will ultimately become a relic of history.
This is the history of Krupp’s rise. Reading carefully, every page is soaked with people’s blood, and the entire book is filled with two words—“cannibalism”! Clearly, once the mask is removed and the false surface peeled away, a gunrunner and war criminal—this is Krupp’s bloody true face. Yet, why does such a heinous and unforgivable Krupp still have people working so hard to gloss over it and praise it? Because glorifying Krupp is equivalent to glorifying capitalism, militarism, and fascism. In today’s era of extreme and increasingly sharp contradictions of imperialism, the imperialist countries are brewing a new world war. While frantically expanding their military and preparing for war, they also activate propaganda machinery to prepare public opinion for the upcoming war. Therefore, as revolutionaries, we must keep our eyes sharp, always hold Marxist weapons, and relentlessly fight against imperialist wars and their reactionary propaganda!
[1] Engels: “History and Language of Ancient Germany,” first edition November 1957, People’s Publishing House.
[2] Cao Xueqin: “Dream of the Red Chamber.”
[3] Cao Xueqin: “Dream of the Red Chamber.”