The arms of Krupp, 1587-1968 by Manchester William 1922-2004

Author:Manchester, William, 1922-2004
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Krupp, Alfried, 1907-1967, Krupp family, Gussstahlfabrik Fried. Krupp (Essen)
Publisher: New York : Bantam
Published: 1970-08-19T04:00:00+00:00

corted to the factory by the SS at 6 a.m., later on at 7 a.m. Here, they remained under the supervision of the factory guards . . . The workmen were Poles, Dutchmen, Czechs, Frenchmen, and a great many Jews. . . . Many of the prisoners were in pitiful physical condition" (Viele Gefangene waren in bemitleidenswerter physischer Verfassung) .^^

Ortmann and Lutat never suspected then that they were witnessing an early (and comparatively mild) rehearsal of a spectacle which would reach its climax in the streets and fields of the Ruhrgebiet itself, but they were present when the Krupp curtain fell at Auschwitz, Alfried had hard luck there. He had hoped to reach peak production in the camp by October; that would be a pleasant surprise for the Fiihrer and the dignitaries who would gather in Hiigel's great hall to see him take the orb and mace of authority from his father the following month. His hopes were dashed. As the Russian offensive gained momentum in the Ukraine, factory after factory was abandoned. Bitterly disappointed, he and his Essen specialists transferred the equipment to two Silesian camps— Wiistegiersdorf and the great Berthawerk sheds rising at Mark-stadt.28

Auschwitz is a familiar name, but it was only one of many camps. Until the collapse in 1945, Krupp employed forced labor in nearly a hundred factories sprawled across Germany, Poland, Austria, France, and Czechoslovakia. The figure is inexact, because all Konzem papers mentioning foreign workers, prisoners of war, or concentration camp inmates were stamped Geheim (secret) by Alfried's Oberlagerfiihnmg, and bales of them were later burned. ^^ Similarly, there is no way of determining exactly how many concentration camps were built by Krupp and the SS, or the number of Stiicke penned in them. An educated guess exists, however. Hans Schade, a research analyst retained by the Americans at Nuremberg, studied all surviving documents carefully, and his estimates are by far the best available.

With the extension of the war and the growth of Alfried's power, Schade's graphs reveal, there was a remarkable acceleration in Krupp's slave population. As late as August 1943 the drafts were relatively small. The flow from France was only a trickle, and virtually all the Dutch were then going to Kiel; the eighty-one factories of the Gusstahlfabrik complex in Essen had enrolled just 11,557 foreign civilians, 2,412 POWs—and no KZ inmates. Prior to his coronation the new Krupp was already a power in the Reich, of covu-se. As vice

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