Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, Alfried Felix Alwyn.

Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, Alfried, born on 13-08-1907, in Essen, often referred to as Alfried Krupp, as a convicted war criminal, an industrialist, a competitor in Olympic yacht races  and a member of the Krupp family, which has been prominent in Germany since the early 19^th century. Krupp’s mother, Bertha Krupp,

inherited the company in 1902 at the age of 16 when her father, Friedrich  Alfred Krupp,

committed suicide.on 22-11-1902, age 48.

    Alfried Krupp as the oldest of eight children, attended grammar school,

  after which he trained at Krupp company workshops and studied metallurgy at technical universities in Munich, Berlin and Aachen. The company profited significantly from the German re-armament of the 1920s and 1930s. Gustav Krupp, in spite of his personal opposition to the Nazi Party, made significant personal donations to it, before the 1933 election, because he saw advantages for the company in the Nazis’ militarism and opposition to independent trade unions. In 1933 Krupp joined the Schutzstaffel (SS). Krupp received a  Master of Engineering from the Aachener Technische Hochschule in 1934, with the acceptance of a thesis on melting steel in vacuums. During the Berlin Olympics of 1936, Joseph Goebbels) (did you know) was the Gaulleiter of Berlin, Krupp participated in 8 Meter Class sailing and won a bronze medal. In 1936, after undergoing financial training at the Dresdner Bank, Krupp joined the family company. The following year he married Anneliese Lampert, born Bahr (1909–1998) and a son, Arndt von Bohlen und Halbach “The Canon King”.
, was born in 1938. Arndt at the age of 48 – being an alcoholic for a long time – he died in his castle in Salzburg of jaw cancer, on 08-05-1986. The marriage ended in divorce soon afterwards. The parents from Alfried didn’t like Annelies Bahr and called her a “barmaid”. and because she had already been married once, she could not be an acceptable daughter-in-law. She was previously married to a Hamburg wholesaler. Apparently the till then very obedient son was prepared for the first time in his life to risk an open conflict with his parents. But in the end they divorced and Annelise received a “lump sum” with 6 credits.

During World War II, the company’s profits increased and it gained control of factories in German-occupied Europe.

Claus Arthur Arnold von Bohlen und Halbach was the third child of Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach and his wife Bertha (born Krupp). Claus spent most of his youth at the Villa Hügel in Essen , built by his great-grandfather, the steel industrialist Alfred Krupp. Claus was considered Gustav’s most talented son throughout his life. As a first lieutenant in the Wehrmacht Air Force, he was a member of the II Group of the 54th Fighter Squadron. under command of Major Martin Mettig, On 10-01-1940, he tested a new respiratory mask in the Eifel. Their failure led to fainting. He and his co-pilot were killed in the crash. Along with his brother Eckbert, who died near Parma in Italy in the last days of the war in 1945, and Arnold Gustav Hans von Bohlen und Halbach, who died 100 years old, as an infant in 1909, he was one of the three children of Gustav and Bertha Krupp von Bohlen and Halbach who died prematurely. His body was initially buried in the Krupp cemetery, which was attached to the cemetery at Kettwiger Tor. When a parking garage was built on parts of the cemetery in 1955, the Krupps’ graves or gravestones were moved to the Krupp section of the Bredeney municipal cemetery on Westerwaldstrasse. Here he is buried next to his wife Sita, his siblings, parents, grandparents (Friedrich Alfred Krupp and Margarethe Krupp) and Alfred Krupp.

Eckbert von Bohlen and Halbach left of his mother, was the youngest child of Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach and his wife Bertha (born Krupp). Eckbert spent most of his youth at the Villa Hügel in Essen, built by his great-grandfather, the steel industrialist Alfred Krupp. After graduating from the Bredeneyer Realgymnasium (today the Goethe School), he joined the Wehrmacht. On 25-04-1945, as a lieutenant, he fell in an ambush by partisans north of Parma on the Italian front. After the war ended, his mother received an undated letter from him that gave her hope that he was alive. After he didn’t come home for the next few months, his brother Berthold personally convinced himself of his fate through research in Italy. His body was later transferred to the Krupp section of the Bredeney municipal cemetery in Essen-Bredeney, where he found his final resting place next to his siblings, parents, grandparents (Friedrich Alfred Krupp and Margarethe Krupp) and Alfred Krupp.

Alfried Krupp became more active in controlling the company as his father’s health declined, especially after 1941, when Gustav Krupp suffered a stroke. Under Alfried Krupp, the company used slave labour supplied by the Nazi regime and thereby also became involved in the Holocaust, (see Anne Frank)

  (see Simon Wiesenthal)   assigning Jewish prisoners from concentration camps to work in many of its factories. Even when the military suggested that security reasons dictated that work should be performed by free German workers, Alfried Krupp insisted on using slaves. Later that year the SS  gave him permission to employ 45.000 Russian civilians as forced labour in his steel factories as well as 120.000 prisoners of war in his coalmines. He officially replaced his father as head of the family firm under the Lex Krupp (“Krupp Law”), proclaimed by Adolf Hitler on 12-11-1943.

  Krupp was also appointed “Minister for Armament and War Production”. The transfer of ownership was a gesture of gratitude by Adolf Hitler (did you know) and was to be one of only a few major Nazi laws that survived the fall of the regime. Krupp worked closely with the SS, which controlled the concentration camps from which slave labor was obtained. In a letter dated 07-09-1943, he wrote: “As regards the cooperation of our technical office in Breslau, I can only say that between that office and Auschwitz the closest understanding exists and is guaranteed for the future.” According to one of his own employees, even when it was clear that the war was lost: “Krupp considered it a duty to make 520 Jewish girls, some of them little more than children, work under the most brutal conditions in the heart of the concern, in Essen.” During the war, Krupp was a noted supporter of an Indian nationalist leader, Subhash Chandra Bose who led the Indian National Army, a military force organized by Germany and Japan. Bose died in a crash, age 48, on 18-08-1945.

After the war, the Allied Military Government investigated Krupp’s employment of slave laborers.  He was convicted of crimes against humanity and sentenced to 12 years imprisonment and the forfeiture of all property. However, after three years, New York banker John Jay McCloy,

  serving as American High Commissioner for Germany arranged for Krupp to be pardoned and the forfeiture of property was reversed. McCloy died old age 93, on 11-03-1989, in Stamford, Connecticut.

Death and burial ground of Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, Alfried Felix Alwyn.

  His second marriage on 19-05-1952 to Vera Knauer, born Hossenfeld (1909–1967), just after his release from Landsberg Prison, ended in a scandal and an expensive settlement in 1957. Alfried Krupp died age 59, on 30-07-1967, in Essen and is buried on the Cemetery Meysenburg, in Essen Bredeney.