Herr Krupp & the Future

The great Krupp works at Essen, arsenal of Kaiser and Fuehrer, lay dead. For five years this steel heart of the German war machine had been a prime target of Allied bombers. Last week U.S. Ninth Armymen rolled past the debris, a few miles farther south overran the high-walled Villa Huegel, secluded estate of powerful, mysterious Alfred Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, Herr President of Krupp, silent partner of Naziism, now wanted by the Allies as a war criminal.

A brace of Villa Huegel retainers blocked the door. Strapping (6 ft. 5) Lieut. Colonel Clarence Sagmoen merely drew his Colt 45, and a passage opened.

Colonel Sagmoen soon had his captive in tow--a thin, nervous man, balding at 37 and trimly dressed in a pin-striped business suit. The American growled: "You bastards started this war and we'll show you who's finishing it!" He ordered the prisoner into the back of his jeep.

As the jeep drove off, a servant hurried from the mansion with a weekend bag for the master. He was too late.

The $160,000 Question. In the kitchen of an Essen apartment, where a regimental command post had been set up, the prisoner was interviewed.

His plant had been shut down, he said, since the heavy Allied air raid of March 11. At that time upward of 50,000 workers, including 10,000 foreign slaves, were on the Krupp production line.

The Americans asked: "Why didn't you leave the Ruhr?"

Herr Krupp shrugged his bony shoulders: "I wanted to stay with my factory where I belong, with my fellow workers."

"Are you a Nazi?"

"I am a German."

"Are you a member of the Nazi Party?"

"Well, yes, but most Germans are,"

"What is your present salary?"

Herr Krupp was annoyed. "Must I answer?" he snapped. "Yes," Colonel Sagmoen snapped back. Herr Krupp lit a cigaret from a silver case in his pocket, puffed anxiously, said: "Four hundred thousand marks a year [$160,000 at official prewar exchange rate]." All profits, he said, had been split between the Nazi Government and his family.

"Do you still think Germany will win the war?"

"I do not know. Politics is not my business. My business is making steel."

The Americans thought of Krupp steel --the steel that went into U-boats, tanks, guns. They thought especially of the "Krupp cannon"--the famed, deadly 88, destroyer of Allied men and machines all the bloody way from El Alamein to the Rhine. They asked a final question:

"What are your plans after the war?"

Herr Krupp pondered. For five generations his family had forged arms--for Napoleon, for the Habsburgs, for the Hohenzollerns, for the Nazis, for any customers with cash. They had made $200,000,000 in World War I. They had profited even more fabulously--for a while--in World War II. And now? Herr Krupp, merchant of death, answered: "I hope to rebuild the factories and produce again."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.