The Krupp Diamond Legacy

Big Bertha in action. This was one of Krupp's first large cannons. Photo credit. The Krupp Diamond, most famously owned by Elizabeth Taylor, swirls with stories of war crimes, marital neglect, armed robbery, and secret compartments. In this early history you'll read of the founding of the Krupp family and the acquisition of the Krupp Diamond by its first owner. Vera Krupp was married to Alfried Krupp in 1952. Three years prior, in 1948, Alfried Krupp was convicted in Nuremberg for crimes against peace and humanity for his abhorrent actions during World War II. The Krupp Legacy begins in the 1600s in Essen, Germany.

German Industrialists

Keen merchants and industrialists, the Krupps were acute business women* and men who came to dominate the armaments industry in western Germany throughout the 20th century {1}. Their fabrication of guns and armor began under the keen watch of Catherina Krupp-Huyssen in the early 1600s {1}. Catherina's brother, Anton Krupp, sold gun-barrels, while other members of the family were believed to have sold cannon balls and bayonets during the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) {1}. In 1737, Friedrich Jodokus Krupp, a grocer and cattle-dealer, married up. With his heiress wife's money, he established the House of Krupp at the center of Essen, Germany {1}. A widower in his forties, Friedrich married his distant relation, Helene Amalie, several years later. It was Helene, a widow after only six years of marriage to Friedrich, who acquired shares in the family's first coal mines and purchased an iron-fulling mill and an iron-foundry. The Krupp dynasty began manufacturing (as opposed to brokering) armaments as early as 1843, under the direction of Alfred Krupp, great-grandson of  Helene Amalie {1}. The dread guns of Krupp brought triumph for Prussia in the 1870s, after which it seemed the whole world "was scrambling to buy Krupp..." {1, pp. 83 & 93}. In 1877, Alfred ensured that Krupp guns served on both sides of the Russo-Turkish {1, p. 96}. In the 1890s, his son and heir, strongly leading Krupp into the 20th century, equipped Germany's new navy {1, p. 106).

Bertha Krupp

After Alfred's death in 1902, the House of Krupp, reported to be worth more than 20 million pounds, passed to Fritz's 16-year-old daughter Bertha {1}. In 1906, the young heiress married Gustav von Bohlen und Halbach, who took the Krupp name for his own. Under Gustav's direction, the Krupp family continued to monopolize the gun industry in Germany, their steel dominating the German battlefields of  World War I. During the three years following the First World War, Germany and the House of Krupp were as entwined as braided rope. It should come as no surprise that in these years of peace the House of Krupp was urged to manufacture such non-militant products as false teeth, garbage cans, and trains {1}. Although the official record relates that Krupp refrained from manufacturing armaments between 1918 and 1936, Peter Batty, in his definitive biography, The House of Krupp, writes of an article written by Gustav Krupp in 1942 {p. 144}. In this article, Gustav reports that while the Krupp weapons of World War I were being destroyed, his factories were manufacturing such products as "padlocks, milk-cans, cash registers" {p. 145}. Much to the chagrin of his heir, Gustav revealed that these benign products served as cover for Krupp's allegiance to the new Kaiser, Adolf Hitler. Rather than keeping the agreements made under the Treaty of Versailles, he assured Herr Hitler that Krupp would "begin the rearmament of the German people without any gaps of experience..." {p. 145}.

Alfried Krupp

In 1907, Bertha Krupp gave birth to the sole heir of the Krupp dynasty. Raised under the rule of Germany's most notorious Kaiser, Alfried would serve the German Reich without hesitation. It is not known whether Alfried was aware of his father's disregard for the Treaty of Versailles, but Batty reminds us of Alfried's loyalty to his family and to Germany {p. 173}. By the time World War II broke out, Alfried was leading Krupp in his father's stead. Peter Batty calls him "far too essential to Hitler and his generals for him to be allowed to go off to fight" {p. 175}. Just how essential was he? According to an official military document prepared by the German military in 1942, Krupp supplied to the Germans a host of tanks and U-boats; anti-tank, anti-aircraft, self-propelled guns; as well as rocket-assisted and armor-piercing shells {1}. And that is the short list of weapons and armor supplied to Germany's troops during the hellish reign of the Fuhrer. Not only did Krupp supply these weapons of mass destruction, but he also seems to have initiated the detestable labor camps where countless human beings lost their lives. According to Jeff Burbank, who wrote Las Vegas Babylon; Tales of Glitter, Glamour and Greed, Alfried established an outsourced company to oversee the labor camps. This company forced 100,000 concentration camp detainees to make munitions and build factories for Krupp throughout Germany and German-occupied states. Burbank states that the same Krupp company managed the concentration camp Bushmannshof, which housed the infants and toddlers of the forced laborers. This man's second wife, Vera, would be the very first woman to wear the Krupp Diamond. The diamond was purchased at some point between 1952 and 1955, and Vera Krupp favored the stone until her death in 1967.

*To read the early portion of Peter Batty's book, The House of Krupp, is to see the German tradition of women and men reigning as equals in business and household affairs. On pages 30-31, we read of Helene Amalie Krupp, who "proceeded to bring up her two small children while at the same time improving and expanding the family business."

References

1. Batty, Peter. The House of Krupp. New York: Stein and Day, 1966.
2. "Krupp - Steel and Diamonds," World's Luxury Guide, April 25, 2012.
3. Simkin, John. "Alfried Krupp." Spartacus Educational. Accessed January 10, 2015.
4. Watson, Peter. The German Genius: Europe's Third Renaissance, the Second Scientific Revolution and the Twentieth Century. London: Simon & Schuster, 2010.
5. World War II Database. "Alfried Krupp." Accessed January 10, 2015.