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Father's Dream. The Krupp dynasty was started by a young Essen merchant named Friedrich Krupp, who switched to making steel when Napoleon's blockade of England cut the Continent off from supplies of high-quality British steel. Friedrich died a failure at 40, leaving his 14-year-old son Alfred the company name, a rundown factory and an obsessive devotion to steel. Though his relatives called him "stupid" for following his father's dream, Alfred started at 15 to learn to produce high-quality steel. He went to England under an assumed name to study British methods, in young manhood rebuilt his factory, soon had orders pouring in from all over the world.
He built up his firm by producing steel rails and the first seamless steel train tires for the railroads that were pushing across Europe and the American West. Krupp also turned out steel cannon, but for many years had little success in selling them until German militarists finally awoke to the fact that the new cannon were easier to load and more accurate and durable than the traditional bronze models. With Krupp cannon, Prussia defeated Austria in 1866 and France in 1871. By 1887 Krupp had sold 24,567 big guns to 21 nations. Alfred Krupp became known in Essen as "Alfred the Great" and abroad as the "Cannon King."
Alfred bought coal and ore mines in Germany and Spain, built power, gas and water plants and his own fleet of ships. Above the smoke and soot of the Ruhrgebiet, overlooking his busy factories, he built Villa Hiigel, a monstrous, boxlike pile made of stone and steel because Alfred feared fire. There he entertained the royalty and dignitaries who streamed to Essen to pay tribute to his genius. When he died in 1887, the Kaiser sent a special deputy, and messages of condolence poured in from all over the world.
Wedding Right. Alfred's eldest son, Friedrich Alfred, did not like either business or steel, spent most of his time poking through zoological books in his Capri home. Yet the Krupp company had built up such momentum that in the 15 years of Friedrich Alfred's reign the number of Krupp workers rose to 43,000, the huge steel foundry at Rheinhausen was built, and all high-quality steel plates in Germany came to be called Krupp-Panzer. Four years after his death in 1902. Friedrich Alfred's daughter and only child. Bertha, married a Prussian counselor to the Vatican named Gustav von Bohlen und Halbach.* Before he left Villa Hügel on the day after the wedding, Kaiser Wilhelm II issued an imperial edict giving Gustav and any male descendants who inherited the Krupp properties the right to use the Krupp name.
Gustav bought new iron-ore mines and coal mines, built bigger presses and mills. When World War I broke out, Krupp was the biggest industrial firm on the Continent, with 82,500 workers. During the war Krupp built the Big Bertha, the 42-centimeter mortar that smashed the Liège forts and cleared the way for the German advance into Belgium and France. Its name was also applied later by newspapermen to the German gun that shelled Paris from 75 miles away.