The Open Door Web Site : History : The Industrial Revolution : Industrialisation in Europe : Germany

It is, in fact, wrong to talk about Germany before 1871 when the German states united around Prussia to form the German Empire. During the 18th. century it was Prussia that had emerged as the most powerful German state under the rule of the Hohenzollern dynasty. Prussia played a major part in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars and was one of the four great European powers to emerge victorious after Napoleon’s final defeat in 1815.

The Congress of Vienna in 1815 dismantled Napoleon’s empire and re-drew the map of Europe. Until 1815 Prussia had been an exclusively north German Baltic state but in this year it was rewarded for its contribution to the defeat of Napoleon by being given more German territory, - a great chunk of Saxony and the Rhineland. (What no-one knew at the time was that the Rhineland included some of Europe’s richest coal deposits. Coal was vital for industrial development).

Prussia’s early economic development was commercial rather than industrial. It began in 1832 when the Zollverein (a customs union) was created. This encouraged the growth of free trade between the German states and by 1844 most of them had joined it, with the notable exception of Austria, which Prussia had deliberately not invited.

As in France, it was the coming of the " railway age " after 1830 which stimulated trade, communications and economic growth among the German states. The first German railway was constructed in 1835 linking Dresden and Leipzig and it proved so successful that the decade of the 1840’s was one of " railway mania " in all the German states and especially Prussia. By 1850 they had constructed half as much as Britain and twice as much as France.

Thanks to the Zollverein and the rapidly expanding railway network, the German states began to overtake France and catch up with Britain between 1850 and 1870. This was particularly true of Prussia, which exploited its rich coalfields (Silesia and the Rhineland -the Ruhr) and iron deposits (Bohemia). in order to create a flourishing steel industry. Alfred Krupp had established an iron foundry at Essen in 1810. It was a very modest affair and even by 1846 still only employed 140 workmen. By 1870 Krupp of Essen, after investing enormously in the Gilchrist - Thomas process of steel making, had been transformed into a giant company employing thousands of workers and making a fortune for the Krupp family with its railway locomotive and armaments production. In turn, the invention of the electric dynamo by Werner Siemens in 1866,laid the foundations of a new electrical industry in which Germany would lead the world.

The Krupp Family

The Krupp family established what was to become the world's largest munitions factory. The family originated from Essen where Friedrick Krupp founded a cast-steel factory in 1811. This first factory specialised in field gun manufacture and, by 1887, it supplied arms to forty six different countries.

Friedrick's son, Alfred, took over the firm in 1826, when he was only fourteen years old. His achievements over the following sixty one years earned him the title "The Cannon King". Alfred also launched the firm into railway development and he was the first steel manufacturer in Europe to adopt Henry Bessemer's open-hearth process.

When Alfred died in 1887, his son, Friedrick, inherited the firm. However, Friedrick committed suicide in 1902 and ownership was passed to his son-in-law, Gustav Krupp (Gustav had taken his wife's family name). During World War I the Krupp factories made guns for the German artillery. One gun, a 98 ton howitzer, which was used to bombard Liège and Verdun, was named "Big Bertha" after Gustav's wife.

Gustav and his son, Alfred, supported Hitler in the German general election of 1933. As Nazi Germany occupied neighbouring countries, Alfred Krupp seized new land to make more factories. Many of these factories used slave-labour from the Nazi concentration camps.

When World War II ended, Gustav was considered too ill to stand trial, but Alfred was sentenced at Nürnberg to twelve years in prison and the Krupp properties were confiscated. However, in 1951, an amnesty was granted and Alfred regained control of the family's holdings. By the early 1960's the Krupp Empire had well surpassed its former status.

The defeat of France in 1870 and the creation of a united Germany in 1871 stimulated industrialisation even further, because the new politically united Germany could now exploit the rich iron-fields of Lorraine taken from France.

By the opening decade of the twentieth century, Germany was challenging Britain as Europe’s major industrial power. Britain was still producing more coal, but Germany was producing more steel. What was worrying about this situation for Britain and France was the fact that a great proportion of this industrial production was used to build up Germany’s military and naval power. Would it be used once more to defeat France and to challenge Britain’s domination of the oceans?