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==Roles played in important historical events==

===Franco-Prussian War===
The unexpected [[Franco-Prussian War|victory of Prussia over France]] (19 July 1870{{snd}}10 May 1871) demonstrated the superiority of [[Breech-loading weapon|breech-loaded]] steel cannon over [[Muzzleloader|muzzle-loaded]] brass. Krupp artillery was a significant factor at the battles of [[Battle of Wissembourg (1870)|Wissembourg]] and [[Battle of Gravelotte|Gravelotte]], and was used during the siege of Paris. Krupp's [[Anti-aircraft warfare#Earliest use|anti-balloon guns]] were the first [[Anti-aircraft warfare|anti-aircraft]] guns. Prussia fortified the major North German ports with batteries that could hit French ships from a distance of {{cvt|4000|yards|km mi}}, inhibiting invasion.

[[File:Krupp's Gun Shop (1901).jpg|thumb|left|Krupp's Gun Shop c. 1901]]

===Venezuela Crisis===

Krupp's construction of the [[Great Venezuela Railway]] from 1888 to 1894 raised Venezuelan national debt. Venezuela's suspension of debt payments in 1901 led to [[gunboat diplomacy]] of the [[Venezuela Crisis of 1902–1903]].<ref>Tomz, Michael ''Enforcement by Gunboats'' Stanford University (2006) p.189</ref>

===Balkan Wars===

Russia and the Ottoman Empire both bought large quantities of Krupp guns. By 1887, Russia had bought 3,096 Krupp guns, while the Ottomans bought 2,773 Krupp guns. By the start of the [[Balkan Wars]] the largest export market for Krupp worldwide was Turkey, which purchased 3,943 Krupp guns of various types between 1854 and 1912. The {{nowrap|second-largest}} customer in the Balkans was Romania, which purchased 1,450 guns in the same period, while Bulgaria purchased 517 pieces, Greece 356, Austria-Hungary 298, Montenegro 25, and Serbia just 6 guns.<ref name="StockerGrant2003">{{cite book|author1=Donald J. Stocker|author2=Jonathan A. Grant|title=Girding for Battle: The Arms Trade in a Global Perspective, 1815–1940|year=2003|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KN-oJ_5Gy7UC&pg=PA32YEAR|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-275-97339-1|pages=31–32}}</ref>

===World War I===
[[File:Krupp WWI gun breech block.jpg|thumb|Detail of a WWI gun breech block manufactured by Krupp in Essen]]
Krupp produced most of the artillery of the Imperial German Army, including its heavy siege guns:  the 1914 420&nbsp;mm [[Big Bertha (howitzer)|Big Bertha]], the 1916 [[38 cm SK L/45 "Max"|Langer Max]], and the seven [[Paris Gun]]s in 1917 and 1918. In addition, [[Friedrich Krupp Germaniawerft]] built German warships and submarines in Kiel. During the war, Krupp also modified the design of an existing [[38 cm SK L/45 "Max"|Langer Max]] gun, which they built in [[Lange Max Museum|Koekelare]]. The gun called [[Batterie Pommern]] was the largest gun in the world in 1917 and was able to shoot shells of ±750&nbsp;kg from [[Koekelare]] to [[Dunkirk]].
Before World War I Krupp had a contract with the British armaments company Vickers and Son Ltd. (formerly Vickers Maxim) to supply Vickers-constructed Maxim machine guns. Conversely, from 1902 Krupp was contracted by Vickers to supply its patented fuses to Vickers bullets. It is known that wounded and deceased German soldiers were found to have spent Vickers bullets with the German inscription "Krupps patent zünder [fuses]" lying around their bodies.{{cn|date=March 2022}}

===World War II===
Krupp received its first order for 135 [[Panzer I]] tanks in 1933, and during World War II made [[Panzer IV|tanks]], artillery, naval guns, armor plate, munitions and other armaments for the German military. [[Friedrich Krupp Germaniawerft]] shipyard launched the [[cruiser]] [[German cruiser Prinz Eugen|''Prinz Eugen'']], as well as many of Germany's [[U-boat]]s (130 between 1934 and 1945) using preassembled parts supplied by other Krupp factories in a process similar to the construction of the US [[liberty ship]]s.

In the 1930s, Krupp developed two 800&nbsp;mm [[railway gun]]s, the [[Schwerer Gustav]] and the [[Dora (artillery)|Dora]]. These guns were the biggest artillery pieces ever fielded by an army during wartime, and weighed almost 1,344 tons. They could fire a 7-ton shell over a distance of 37 kilometers. More crucial to the operations of the German military was Krupp's development of the famed [[88 mm gun|88 mm]] anti-aircraft cannon which found use as a notoriously effective anti-tank gun.{{Citation needed|date=May 2026}}

In an address to the [[Hitler Youth]], [[Adolf Hitler]] stated "In our eyes, the German boy of the future must be slim and slender, as fast as a greyhound, tough as leather and hard as Krupp steel" (''"... der deutsche Junge der Zukunft muß schlank und rank sein, flink wie Windhunde, zäh wie Leder und hart wie Kruppstahl."'')

During the war Germany's industry was heavily bombed. The Germans built large-scale night-time decoys like the [[Krupp decoy site]] (German: Kruppsche Nachtscheinanlage) which was a German decoy-site of the [[Krupp steel works]] in [[Essen]]. During World War II, it was designed to divert Allied [[airstrike]]s from the actual production site of the arms factory.

Krupp Industries employed workers conscripted by the Nazi regime from across Europe. These workers were initially paid, but as Nazi fortunes declined [[forced labour under German rule during World War II|they were kept as slave workers]]. They were abused, beaten, and starved by the thousands, as detailed in the book ''[[The Arms of Krupp]]''. Nazi Germany kept two million French POWs captured in 1940 as forced laborers throughout the war. They added compulsory (and volunteer) workers from occupied nations, especially in metal factories. The shortage of volunteers led the Vichy government of France to deport workers to Germany, where they constituted 15% of the labor force by August 1944. The largest number worked in the giant Krupp steel works in [[Essen]]. Low pay, long hours, frequent bombings, and crowded air raid shelters added to the unpleasantness of poor housing, inadequate heating, limited food, and poor medical care, all compounded by harsh Nazi discipline.  In an affidavit provided at the Nuremberg Trials following the war, Dr. Wilhelm Jaeger, the senior doctor for the Krupp slaves, wrote:
{{Blockquote|Sanitary conditions were atrocious. At Kramerplatz only ten children's toilets were available for 1200 inhabitants...Excretion contaminated the entire floors of these lavatories. The Tatars and Kirghiz suffered most; they collapsed like flies [from] bad housing, the poor quality and insufficient quantity of food, overwork and insufficient rest...Countless fleas, bugs and other vermin tortured the inhabitants of these camps..."<ref>{{cite book|last=Shirer|first= William L. | title=The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich | location=New York | publisher=Simon and Schuster, Inc. | year=1959 | page= 949}}</ref>}} The survivors finally returned home in the summer of 1945 after their liberation by the allied armies.<ref>Françoise Berger,  "L'exploitation de la Main-d'oeuvre Française dans l'industrie Siderurgique Allemande pendant la Seconde Guerre Mondiale," [The Exploitation of French Labor in the German Iron and Steel Industry During World War II], ''Revue D'histoire Moderne et Contemporaine'' (2003) 50#3 pp 148–181</ref>

Krupp industries was [[Krupp Trial|prosecuted after the end of war]] for its support to the [[Nazi Germany|Nazi regime]] and use of forced labour.{{Citation needed|date=May 2026}}

===Post–World War II===
Krupp's trucks were once again produced after the war, but so as to minimize the negative wartime connotations of the Krupp name they were sold as "[[Südwerke]]" trucks from 1946 until 1954, when the Krupp name was considered rehabilitated.{{Citation needed|date=May 2026}}

===The Mustang===

Krupp also used the name "Mustang" for some of their products, causing a problem for Ford Motor Company in 1964 when they desired to export their car of the same name to Germany, especially since American military personnel stationed there wanted the new car. Although Krupp offered to sell the Mustang name to Ford for a reasonable price, Ford declined and as a result, badged all Mustangs destined for Germany "T-5." By 1978 Krupp's rights to the Mustang name expired and all Mustangs exported to Germany henceforth retained the Mustang name.

===Other accomplishments===

Krupp Steel Works of Essen, Germany, manufactured the spherical pressure chamber of the dive vessel ''[[Bathyscaphe Trieste|Trieste]]'',<ref>Prophetically, [[Jules Verne]]'s 1870 novel ''[[Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas]]'' remarks that Captain Nemo's submarine was made of steel from Krupp of Prussia.</ref> the first vessel to take humans to the [[Challenger Deep|deepest known point]] in the oceans, accomplished in 1960. This was a heavy duty replacement for the original pressure sphere (made in Italy by Acciaierie Terni) and was manufactured in three finely machined sections: an equatorial ring and two hemispherical caps. The sphere weighed 13 tonnes in air (net displacement eight tonnes in water) with walls that were 12.7 centimetres (5.0&nbsp;in) thick.

Krupp Steel Works was also contracted in the mid-1960s to construct the [[Effelsberg 100-m Radio Telescope]], which, from 1972 to 2000 was the largest fully steerable [[radio telescope]] in the world.<ref>Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy | Radio Telescope Effelsberg | History</ref>

===Peacetime activities===

====Railway expansion period====

Krupp was the first company to patent a seamless, reliable and strong enough railway tyre for rail freight. Krupp received original contracts in the United States and enjoyed a period of technological superiority while also contributing the majority of rail to the new continental railway system. "Nearly all railroads were using Krupp rails, the [[New York Central Railroad|New York Central]], [[Illinois Central Railroad|Illinois Central]], [[Delaware and Hudson Railway|Delaware and Hudson]], [[Maine Central]], [[Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway|Lake Shore and Michigan Southern]], [[Bangor and Aroostook Railroad|Bangor and Aroostook]], [[Great Northern Railway (U.S.)|Great Northern]], [[Boston and Albany Railroad|Boston and Albany]], [[Florida and East Coast]], [[Texas and Pacific Railway|Texas and Pacific]], [[Southern Pacific Transportation Company|Southern Pacific]], and [[Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México|Mexican National]]."<ref>Manchester, pp. 67, 141</ref>

[[File:Krupp Rail.jpeg|thumbnail|Rail marked "KRUPP 1926 GERMANY". Photo taken in Boston area 2015]]
[[File:F.Krupp 1885 railway.jpg|thumb|F. Krupp 1885 railway steel]]

====Diesel engines====

In 1893, a mechanical engineer by the name of [[Rudolf Diesel]] approached Gustav with a patent for a "new kind of internal combustion engine employing autoignition of the fuel". He also included his text "{{lang|de|Theorie und Konstruktion eines rationellen Wärmemotors}}". Four years later, the first 3-[[horsepower]] [[diesel engine]] was produced.<ref>Manchester, p. 199</ref>