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The road back was not entirely rocky. Since 40% of the plant remaining after Allied bombings had been dismantled and shipped all over Europe, the Krupp firm was able to rebuild with modern equipment that produced faster, better and more cheaply than its old equipment, then being used by the British, French and Russians. Even more important were the thousands of Krupp workers whose loyalty to the firm drove them to frenzied efforts to rebuild. This "Kruppianer spirit" was the fruit of a cradle-to-grave system of social security started by the company more than 100 years ago. Now it owns housing space for 12,000 families, builds new houses at the rate of 500 a year. For nearly every active Krupp worker, there is a retired worker drawing a healthy company pension. Krupp runs a hospital for its workers, maintains theaters, sports grounds, clubs, even operates its own food stores to force down the price of food for workers. Though unionized, Firma Fried. Krupp has never had a company strike.
Circus Manager. To help him in the task of reconstruction, Alfried Krupp picked a deputy in startling contrast to himself and his tradition. "When I came back from prison," says he, "we had become a machinery and trading company, deprived of our traditional steelmaking role. We needed new blood, a new approach, a fresh policy. I decided we should start looking for a man who did not know steel." Krupp found his man in 40-year-old Berthold Beitz, the breezy general director of the Iduna-Germania Insurance Co., who had boosted his company from 16th to third place in postwar Germany. Krupp met Beitz through a mutual friend, studied him carefully for months before finally asking him to become Krupp's general director. Said Beitz: "I thought the Krupps were trying to borrow some money from my company, and he was too shy to mention it."
Krupp's choice proved to be a shrewd one. Beitz is typical of a new group of bright young executives who are taking over the reins of West German industry in positions formerly reserved for age and long experience, bypassing tradition in favor of aggressive, hard-driving methods. Beitz alienated many an old Kruppianer with just such methods (he shocked workers by asking to be called Beitz instead of Herr Generaldirektor), earned the nickname "the American" for his breezy ways and love of jazz. But he fired up the conservative management, tightened up the firm's operations, soon had Krupp humming with new energy. "I am a circus manager," says Beitz, "and I must crack the whip. Action—action right now—is what we must have."
Sailing & Skat. Alfried Krupp leaves the day-to-day direction of his empire to Beitz, who has learned to anticipate his boss's wishes so well that he rarely bothers him with anything but major problems. Krupp himself rarely issues outright commands; he simply makes suggestions, seldom overrules his directors. When he does, his decision is not questioned.