Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach

Krupp's mother, Bertha Krupp, inherited the company in 1902 at the age of 16 when her father, Friedrich Alfred Krupp committed suicide after being exposed in the newspapers as a homosexual.

In October 1906, Bertha married Alfried's father, Gustav von Bohlen und Halbach, a German diplomat and member of the nobility in a Lutheran ceremony, who subsequently added the Krupp name to his own by permission of Emperor Wilhelm II.

Alfried was born almost a year later.

Alfried Krupp attended grammar school, after which he trained at the Krupp company workshops and studied metallurgy at technical universities in Munich, Berlin and Aachen.

Alfried Felix Alwyn Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach (13 August 1907 – 30 July 1967), often referred to as Alfried Krupp, was a German industrialist, a competitor in Olympic yacht races, contributor to the SS and a member of the Krupp family, which has been prominent in German industry since the early 19th century.

In the following year he married Anneliese Lampert, née Bahr (1909–1998); their son, Arndt, was born in 1938.

During World War II, the company's profits increased and it took control of factories confiscated by the German army in Nazi-occupied Europe.

Alfried became more active in controlling the company as his father's health declined.

The company profited significantly from the German re-armament of the 1920s and 1930s.

From 1931, Alfried was a supporting member of the SS (förderndes Mitglied der SS).

Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, 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 their 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 the same year, after undergoing financial training at the Dresdner Bank, Krupp joined the family company.

In 1937, Krupp – like his father – was appointed military economic leader (Wehrwirtschaftsführer).

He was also a deputy of his father in his capacity as Chairman of the Board of the Adolf Hitler Fund of German Trade and Industry (Adolf-Hitler-Spende der deutschen Wirtschaft).

He was a member of the National Socialist Flyers Corps, where he reached the rank of Standartenfuhrer and from 1938 he was a member of the Nazi Party.

He became de facto head of the firm in 1941 when Gustav Krupp suffered a stroke.

Under Alfried, the company used slave labor supplied by the government and often assigning Jewish prisoners from concentration camps to work in many of its factories.

Even when the military suggested that security reasons dictated that some work should be performed by free German workers, Alfried insisted on using forced labour.

In 1943, Krupp became sole proprietor of the company, following the Lex Krupp ("Krupp Law") decreed by Adolf Hitler.

He officially replaced his father as head of the family firm under the Lex Krupp ("Krupp Law"), proclaimed by Adolf Hitler on 12 November 1943, which set aside the usual laws of inheritance and preserved the Krupp firm as a family business.

Under this law, Alfried formally added the Krupp name to his own.

He was also appointed Reichsminister für Rüstung und Kriegsproduktion ("Minister for Armament and War Production").

The transfer of ownership was a gesture of gratitude by Hitler and was to be one of only a few major National Socialist government laws that survived the fall of the regime.

During the war, Alfried Krupp was responsible for the transfer of certain factories in the occupied territories to the German Reich.

He was awarded the War Merit Cross, Second and First Class.

Krupp worked closely with the SS, which controlled the concentration camps from which forced labor was obtained.

In a letter dated 7 September 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."

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.

In the Krupp trial, it was alleged by the prosecution that the accused (Alfried Krupp and eleven other associates) had committed Crimes against Peace, War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity, and participated in a common plan and conspiracy, all as defined in Control Council Law No.10 of 20 December 1945.

The Krupp Trial was the tenth of a series of twelve military tribunals (which became known as the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials) for war crimes against members of the leadership of Nazi Germany.

The Indictment filed against the 12 accused made detailed allegations which were arranged under four counts:

All of the accused except one were found guilty of having, contrary to the provisions of international law, employed prisoners of war, foreign civilians, and concentration camp inmates under inhumane conditions in work connected with the conduct of war.

Krupp's wartime employment of slave labor resulted in the "Krupp Trial" of 1947–1948, following which he served three years in prison.

He was convicted after World War II of crimes against humanity for the genocidal manner in which he operated his factories (with the use of slave labor) and sentenced to twelve years in prison, subsequently commuted to three years with time served in 1951.

The family company, known formally as Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp, was a key supplier of weapons and materiel to the German Government and the Wehrmacht during World War II.

At Krupp's behest, after his death in 1967, control of the Krupp company passed to the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation, a philanthropic organisation.