Sharing the Empire

January 11, 1966 was rather a red-letter day in German industrial history. For the first time since the gigantic Krupp empire was founded a century and a half ago, Krupp shares were sold on the public market.

Not, to be sure, many shares: those listed for sale represented only $9,000,000 of the total $143 million equity of Fried. Krupp Huettenwerke A.G., a recently organized coal-and-steel subsidiary that forms only a fraction of the Krupp holdings. Each of the preferred shares issued at a par value of 100 German marks ($25) carried a guaranteed annual dividend of at least 10% for the next 10 years. With such a sweetener tagged on, the Krupp shares opened at $39.75 on the West German exchanges, and at week's end were selling for $45.25.

For Alfried Felix Alwyn Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, 58, fifth-generation ruler of the Krupp empire, last week's dilution of ownership, no matter how tiny, could only signify changing times in a life that has seen many changes. When Krupp succeeded to his family's industrial throne in 1943, the word Krupp was synonymous with armaments. The Krupp plants produced the weapons that helped Hitler ravage Europe; by the end of World War II most of the Krupp factories lay in ruins, pounded into rubble by Allied bombers, and Alfried Krupp himself was sentenced to twelve years in prison for employing slave labor in his factories. Krupp was released in 1951, after serving only half his sentence; at that time he pledged that he would never again make another gun or another bullet.

Krupp has kept that pledge; the closest his complex now comes to providing the instruments of war is in its production of trucks and transport planes for the West German Bundeswehr. Patiently rebuilding from defeat, Krupp diversified to the extent that Krupp-owned concerns now turn out not only locomotives, aircraft, huge bucket dredgers and machine tools but even mineral water and orchids. Last year Krupp sales amounted to well over $1 billion, thus proving the point made by one of Alfried's corporate aides, who says pridefully: "Peace pays."

To finance further expansion and diversification, Krupp has recently needed ready cash--and raised a quick $27 million by selling shares to several West German banks; they agreed not to sell their Krupp shares until the presently depressed market for German coal and steel stocks improves. Last week's public offering also symbolized a growing recognition that one-man, head-of-the-family control over the empire may end with Alfried Krupp himself. His son Arndt, 28, the heir apparent, one of the swiftest of Western Europe's jet set, does not have an intense interest in business affairs. Already there have been suggestions that when Alfried Krupp steps aside, the Krupp holdings be placed in a family trust administered by a Krupp-dominated board.

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