[1][2] 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.

[3] 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.

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).

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

[7] 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.

[citation needed][9] 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.

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.

[12] However, after three years, John J. McCloy, the American High Commissioner for Germany, arranged for Krupp to be released on time served and the forfeiture of his property was reversed under political pressure.

[18] Prior to Krupp's death from lung cancer, his assistant, Berthold Beitz, worked to transfer control of the company to a Stiftung (foundation), called the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation,[19] to be monitored by three members of a supervisory board, including Hermann Josef Abs, of the former Deutsch-Asiatische Bank A.G. and Deutsche Bank AG.

In this agreement, Krupp's son and heir, Arndt, relinquished any claim over his father's businesses, and was to be paid a relatively modest cash amount, in yearly installments, until his own death.