Friedrich Krupp
Friedrich Carl Krupp (born July 17, 1787 in Essen , † October 8, 1826 there ) was a German industrialist . He is considered to be the founder of the Krupp-Gussstahlfabrik and the resulting company Friedrich Krupp AG , which his son Alfred Krupp was to develop into the largest industrial company in Europe at times and which was merged into ThyssenKrupp AG in 1999 .
Family and education
Friedrich Carl Krupp, a portrait of him is still unknown, is the son of Peter Friedrich Wilhelm Krupp (1753–1795) and his wife Petronella née Forsthoff (1757–1839). You belong to an established Essen merchant family who originally immigrated from the Netherlands .
Friedrich Krupp's grandmother Amalie Krupp , née Ascherfeld (1732–1810), who was widowed young in 1757 , had already built a network of various trading and manufacturing companies from a grocery store that she had inherited from her husband Friedrich Jodocus Krupp . Friedrich Krupp attended the Burggymnasium until he was 14 years old and completed a commercial apprenticeship in his grandmother's shop.
In 1807, on the occasion of his engagement to Therese Wilhelmi (1790–1850, daughter of an Essen merchant) , Friedrich Krupp received a gift from his grandmother Amalie Krupp as a gift of the hut for good hope , the second oldest ironworks in what would later become the Ruhr area , which it had acquired cheaply in 1799 from bankruptcy . This enabled Friedrich to enter heavy industry . Friedrich, who had already been employed there by his grandmother as a manager at the age of 20 and who had also acquired basic knowledge of metallurgy since 1805, did not manage the smelter satisfactorily; it was also in competition with the neighboring St.-Antony-Hütte , which initially had locational advantages in terms of water supply. Amalie Krupp reversed the transfer in 1808 and succeeded in selling the hut for a multiple of the purchase price she had paid.
Good hope later went to the brothers Franz and Gerhard Haniel and Heinrich Arnold Huyssen , who built up the Gutehoffnungshütte, the largest employer in what would later become Oberhausen for a long time .
In 1808 Friedrich Krupp married his fiancée Therese Wilhelmi. Since that year Krupp has been running a shop with Dutch groceries with partners and, after the death of his grandmother in 1810, took over their grocery store.
The daughter Ida (1809–1882) and three sons Alfred (1812–1887), Hermann (1814–1879) and Friedrich (1820–1901) emerged from the marriage in the following years .
From 1812 Krupp was a member of the city council, initially as a billeting commissioner and later as a city fire officer.
Company formation
When Friedrich Krupp's grandmother Amalie died in 1810, the inheritance went to him and his sister Helene, married von Müller, at Metternich Castle . After Krupp failed with the grocery business after a short time, he founded a workshop with the inheritance as start-up capital, which he renamed the Friedrich Krupp company on November 20, 1811 for the production of English cast steel and all the resulting products and entered the commercial register of the still insignificant country town Registered food. The partners were the brothers Georg Karl Gottfried and Wilhelm Georg Ludwig von Kechel, who already had experience in cast steel production .
Target of Friedrich Krupp was the coveted cast steel since the Continental System Napoleon Bonaparte no longer England to make its way to Europe in the continent. However, he wasn't the first. The production of English cast steel was well known on the continent since Johann Conrad Fischer (1773–1854 ) broke the English monopoly in Schaffhausen (see Georg Fischer AG ) in 1804 . There was initially a gap in the market - but there was a lack of entrepreneurial skills.
To the north of the Essen city wall , on the site of an old fulling mill in the marshy Emscher lowlands on the Berne , Krupp used the money he had inherited to erect the buildings for a barring and forging hammer . However, this location turned out to be unfavorable as it was poorly developed. In addition, there was the fluctuating and often too low water level of the Berne, which was not suitable for a constant drive of the forging hammers. At first, Krupp could only produce cement steel . In 1812 he first supplied files made from this material.
The cast steel factory on the Berne was completed in 1813 after investing around 30,000 Reichstaler with minimal income. Krupp basically lived off the family fortune. In addition, the partners of Kechel turned out to be unreliable. On the verge of bankruptcy , Krupp parted ways with them through long, costly, legal channels and in 1816 became the sole owner of the company. That year he was able to supply English cast steel for the first time. By that time, however, the continental lock had been lifted for three years, and genuine English cast steel was once again available in large quantities on the continent.
expansion
In 1817 production was expanded to include tanner tools, drills, turning tools , coin dies and coin rollers. Since the mostly satisfied Prussian Mint in Düsseldorf was now one of his customers, Krupp gained some reputation. In 1817 the Royal Prussian Mint certified the excellent quality of its steel. Small quantities of cast steel could also be sold to external customers. The first cast steel rollers manufactured by Krupp for minting coins were hardly successful, however, the authorities rejected nine out of 14 copies for quality reasons.
Since the factory on the Berne was in a poor location, Krupp enlarged the factory in 1818 and laid the foundation stone for the construction of the Krupp cast steel factory west of the city of Essen in an area that had been family-owned since the 17th century. The new system went into operation on October 18, 1819 , on Mühlheimer Chaussee in front of Limbecker Tor , today Altendorfer Strasse. It was designed for sixty smelting furnaces, but only eight were available in the first construction phase. It was also during this time that Krupp had an overseer's house built there, which his son Alfred Krupp later stylized as the Krupp parent company . This new location near the Neuack colliery , from which Krupp obtained coal, was an advantage. Nevertheless, the old forge on the Berne still had to be maintained, as there was no watercourse at the new location.
In 1820 Krupp primarily supplied cutting tools, saws and blades. In 1823 he succeeded in manufacturing the high-quality crucible steel , even if the results were still unclear. Important metallurgical relationships could not yet be explained. Due to financial bottlenecks, different ores were also used, which led to different casting quality that the customers did not want.
Most recently, his solution to the secret of cast steel cost him over 200,000 thalers, which today corresponds to around four million euros.
Early death
The company did not bring any significant income. The heavily indebted founder of the Essen cast steel factory was increasingly unable to cope with the double burden as a manufacturer and at the same time holder of several offices and honorary posts in the city of Essen. As a result, Friedrich Krupp became seriously ill and bedridden. In 1824 he had to move to the supervisor's house in his factory for financial reasons. The befitting house on Flachsmarkt, right next to the Marktkirche , in which the family of six lived, fell to the creditors. Friedrich's widow Therese could no longer support the family and therefore sent a daughter to work in Frankfurt and placed a son with relatives.
On October 8, 1826, Friedrich Krupp, 39 years old, died of pulmonary edema . He was buried in what was then the evangelical cemetery in Essen between the first and second Weberstrasse, which is now overbuilt. His grave slab is now in the Bredeney municipal cemetery .
At the time of his death, the Krupp company still employed four workers who were taken over by his 14-year-old son Alfred along with the factory and 10,000 thalers (around 200,000 euros) in debts. The widow Therese does not file for bankruptcy and, supported by her eldest son Alfred and other relatives, continued to run the business. It remained the owner until 1848. Son Alfred led the company to international recognition in the decades that followed. The later company name, Friedrich Krupp AG , which is reminiscent of the founder, survived until the merger to form ThyssenKrupp AG in 1999.
In Essen's southern district , Friedrichstrasse is named after Friedrich Krupp.
literature
- Wilhelm Berdrow (ed.): Friedrich Krupp, the founder of the cast steel factory, in letters and documents. Published on behalf of Friedr. Krupp AG. Baedeker, Essen (Ruhr) 1915.
- Wilhelm Berdrow: Friedrich Krupp (1787-1826). In: Rheinisch-Westfälische Wirtschaftsbiographien. Volume I, Aschendorff, Münster 1931, pp. 20-37.
- Burkhard Beyer: From crucible steel to Krupp steel. Technical and company history of Friedrich Krupp's cast steel factory in the first half of the 19th century. Klartext Verlag, Essen 2007, ISBN 978-3-89861-506-8 .
- Franz Maria Feldhaus: Krupp, Friedrich . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 55, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1910, p. 537 f.
- Renate Koehne-Lindenlaub: Krupp, Friedrich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 13, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-428-00194-X , p. 129 f. ( Digitized version ).
- Frank Stenglein: Krupp - ups and downs of a company. Klartext Verlag, Essen 2011, ISBN 978-3-8375-0518-4 , pp. 15-20.
Web links
- Literature by and about Friedrich Krupp in the catalog of the German National Library
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Harold James: Krupp - German legend and global company. Verlag CH Beck, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-406-62414-8 .
- ↑ a b c d e Diana Maria Friz: Alfried Krupp and Berthold Beitz - The heir and his governor . 2nd Edition. Orell Füssli Verlag, Zurich 1988, ISBN 3-280-01852-8 .
- ↑ Burkhard Beyer, short summary
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Krupp, Friedrich |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Krupp, Friedrich Carl |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German industrialist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 17, 1787 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | eat |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 8, 1826 |
| Place of death | eat |