Therese Krupp

Therese Krupp (born on August 28, 1790 as Therese Johanne Helene Wilhelmi ; died on August 3, 1850 ) was a German entrepreneur and was largely responsible for the continued existence and rise of the Krupp dynasty .

Life

The daughter of a wealthy Essen merchant married Friedrich Krupp in 1808 , who had been striving to produce high-quality cast steel since 1807 . On November 20, 1811, he invested his inheritance in the factory he had newly founded, north of the Essen city wall , on the site of an old fulling mill in the marshy Emscher lowlands on the Berne , for the production of cast steel. The man, who was also very busy outside of the company, had to experiment with the recipe for a long time and with changing partners until he came up with a promising recipe. In 1818 the company moved to what is now Essen's West Quarter , west of what was then the city of Essen, and built the Krupp cast steel factory there . However, due to the high debt burden of his company of over 40,000 thalers in 1824, Krupp was forced to move with his family to the supervisor's house in the middle of the factory premises, which was later stylized to become the Krupp parent company . He sold the bourgeois town house to cover debts. When Friedrich Krupp died in 1826, his widow became the sole heir, so that the children would not be burdened financially with the remaining 10,000 thalers in debt.

Contrary to the expectations of creditors, his widow Therese continued the business under strict austerity measures instead of filing for bankruptcy. The son Alfred , at the time fourteen years old, was (as Therese Krupp explained to the business customers) inaugurated in good time about the internal operations and the factory could therefore guarantee high quality steel even after Friedrich's death. Together with Helene von Müller (née Krupp, the husband's sister), who provided additional capital, she re-founded the cast steel factory under her name ( Wittwe Friedr. Krupp ). While Alfred worked in the factory, then also maintained customer contact at home and abroad, gained the necessary technical and commercial experience to take over the company and finally became managing director, his mother remained the owner of the growing company until 1848, but still existed threatened company. Even after taking over the work for a symbolic purchase price, the works under Alfred again went into insolvency, until he achieved a breakthrough on the market thanks to orders and further loans in the 1850s. After his own successes, Alfred later downplayed his mother's role in the company's continued existence.

Grave slabs of Friedrich Krupp and his wife Therese in the Bredeney cemetery

progeny

The marriage to Friedrich Krupp had four children:

• Ida Krupp (1809-1882)
• Alfred Krupp (1812-1887)
• Hermann Krupp (1814–1879)
• Friedrich Krupp (1820–1901)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Presentation of the company history of Thyssen-Krupp
2. ^ ^{A b} Harold James: Krupp - German legend and global company ; Verlag CH Beck, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-406-62414-8 .
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Arno Widmann: In the beginning there was bankruptcy. In: Frankfurter Rundschau , November 20, 2011 ( Memento from January 29, 2017 in the Internet Archive )

literature

• Antonius Lux (ed.): Great women of world history. A thousand biographies in words and pictures . Sebastian Lux Verlag , Munich 1963, p. 279.
• Marianne Fleischhack: Therese Krupp. A German woman and mother. Zeulenroda, 1941, 31 pages.