Alfried Krupp Von Bohlen Und Halbach - Family and Early Life

Family and Early Life

Krupp's mother, Bertha Krupp, inherited the company in 1902 at the age of 16 when her father, Friedrich Krupp, committed suicide. In October 1906, Bertha married Krupp's father, Gustav von Bohlen und Halbach, a German diplomat and member of the nobility, who subsequently added the Krupp name to his own by permission of Emperor William II. Alfried was born almost a year later.

Alfried Krupp 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 initial 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.

Krupp received a Diplomingenieur (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, 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, née Bahr (1909–1998) and a son, Arndt, was born in 1938. His family disapproved and their pressure may have influenced the divorce that followed soon afterwards.