Blood and Steel - the Rise of the House of Krupp

by Bernhard Menne

The Krupp family are a prominent German dynasty from Essen and are famous for their steel production and the manufacture of ammunitions and armaments. This book provides the first genuine critical history of the company whose guns made the background for a half-century of mad armament policy, made possible by Krupp's new patron, Adolf Hitler. The House of Krupp's true history had been concealed by thousands of printed pages containing cleverly dished-up data which the author has pushed aside to reveal a true historical investigative account.

448 pages, Paperback

First published March 15, 2007

Reviews

[Bryn Grover · Rating 3 out of 5]

It had some good history on the Krupp industries and their impact on German economy and history. Unfortunately, the author's status as a card carrying KDP member comes out in his writing. As the book progresses through history, his communist leanings become more vocal and obvious to the point of feeling like he is blaming Krupp for starting WW1 and for causing Hitler's rise to power as well as the impetus behind the Night of the Long Knives. Written/published in 1938 by an avowed communist who fled Germany in 1933 as the Communists were being squelched by the new Nazi government. He fled to Prague and eventually fled from there to London (after the publication of this book which I assume happened prior to the Anschluß since there is no mention of it, and before he could be rounded up in the Czech takeover in 1939). So his historical work, while impressive in some ways, is tainted by his hatred of Imperial Germany, Nazism, Capitalism, Big Business, The Ruhr Industrialists (including others outside of Krupp), etc.; and he seems to lay the blame squarely on the house of Krupp.

[A.L. Sowards]

Had some interesting information, but not exactly what I was looking for. I was interested in the inner workings of the factory, especially during WWI, and this mostly focused on how the owners hid their wartime profits (at least during the section on WWI). The book was at times dry, at times disorganized, and had a vindictive tone. Only when I was mostly done with the book did I realize the Kindle version isn’t new; it’s a reprint of something originally published in the late 1930s. I guess that explains a lot. I don’t mind old books, but in this one the author set out to counter the rash of positive books written about Krupp, and since I hadn’t read any of those, the book just came off as biased. Maybe 2.5 stars.