“You Shall Be My Son.”

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVIII, Issue 7, 14 August 1912, Page 4

“You Shall Be My Son.”

The Romance of Bertha Krupp, the Young German Woman Who Owns and Rules the Famous Krupp Steei Works at Essen.

most people are familiar < a I with the remarkable rise of YAJL Krupp's from a small workshop, yielding a precarious pvhig to the owner and four workmen, to a colossal factory employing <l,OOO people—nearly the whole population of tie biggest of the New Zealand cities-—-lew - have read of the romance of Bertha Krupp, tiie dark eyej voting woman who is the i reseat owner and inter of the Krupp steel works at Essen, There are many monarchs whose power for g'«»l or evil does nut eqv.ul that of Bertha Krupp, the c-nnuon-queen. H< antuial in. ome of a million ) ... !- (iver.oj- the civil E-t of a l blit the ,'-h. -t rulers. The tii-t "King Krupp' working man. lE* genius

tra _ E--: ii.‘ • oo I. The B'. .oli ! K • did mi’ ll to develop the great :..l ;-t y; hot hi- life wa- bad; he die.l ly his >.nn haul in t'apil. At ba-t it was thought he died a body was brought from Capri an.l b-.irie-l with German pomp. The Kj -*r pr.ii-' l the dead man. B»t yonder in E—en they will t.-ll you that Erie.lrl.-h Krupp did not di. ; tbai somewhi ie, in anaay niott- < vile, he is h .1 ug hi- disgra e. In any ea ■•-. it was in 1002 that Bertha Knj.p <am- to lu-r iron liiroi.-u At that time tiie bu-ine-- was tran-foinu-4 into an akti. nresell- halt with a . ..uncil of nominal stockholder-; bo;- the eight million [xmiiul-d worth of s'.ans ami all the power remained in the heads of Bertha Krupp. Her wiU tied her whin are supreme. Aw royalty is b.e.l foi its trade, she va. —booled for ber position. Hur earliest m<irori<s arc if

the white furna.l- ar. 1 th? roaring shops where she walked, cling: ug to her father's ha ltd. "You shall be my -on," he -aid; and if he could not make a man of her, he ga.ve her the technical training which fitted her for the headship cf the house. In the German War Office they will tell you there are few artillery officers who know the guns belter than she do-. Her life has been pa--ed ami I these deadly, delicate me. hani-m-.- In -pite of the old grey men who -it in the council, she is still tlw brain and the will of Essen. The oat-Gle world is a trifle s ipti.wl; not willingly do men of the war-trade admit that a girl can equal tiiini in scieme. but the truth is that Ih-'i;.,. Ki-re-;> i- the -ole and absolute m;-;r> -- <:»' ail that huge industry—from the coun.il chamber to the testing

large, win.. day and night th- anuons crash away. 11. r forty thousand workm n know the truth of th:-; and they love h r well—en ii the dreary German lists whose religion is di- out ent. For one tiring, -he i- 1 at "nobl.With rugged pride the Knipps have kept to their detnoc1 y. T. -. are proud of t blunt, piel.ian name. Twice they retime.l the frie-herrn-tand—they would be norther lords nor nobles. They hava kept to the people. The last wojd Bertha Kropp heard from her father was: "Do not wed a gilded fool!” Before his death there were great ~ua-: royal r. atioirs at the Huegel V ilia in E--en; the Kai-w, with a train < ." prince*, had Come there to shoot an I to <?'.- .m» arm.. irqdate. The myrteribus death of Frkdrk-h Kropp put an end to till- gay ami .rowded way of life. T?ic sit .am- were drawn in the big mansion. n.< a omen lived there alone. There was

the ©hl mother, a stately woman c-f noble birth—a Von Eude of Hesne-Jfee-sau; only a little fragment of the big fortune 'had come to her. There, too, was the younger sister, Barbara—a t-aD, tdenehr girl nineteen years old. winsome and brown. Iler dower is proportionately very small. In Essen they think of her as the Cinderella of the Krupp-. The fortune and the responsibility were ail for the chosen girl. Now and then the Fraulein Krupp travelled abroad. At Constantinople she was received with almost- queenly bortoms, for the wily Sultan wanted guns and credit. An I at home and abroad the suitors lay in wait for her. How easy—<£>, how easy it is to love a girt with a million ponn-I* a year! Caine a prirx-e of the great line of Reuss and

a-ke I h, r to sit on his musty throne of jinple and gilt: c-ame the'old tw'nl.:mar an i tire.young officers; came dig-

nitariv- en-1 diplomatists—indeed, all the greeds an-.l ambitions and wants of the lean aristocracy swarmed about her. Now and then honest love looked up at her timidly—a young foreman in th a works, a village doctor, a poor gentleman; they loved in silence and went away-. “Her first love is the works," the good, folk of Essen said. "She will marry sotn® one who can aid her in building up her industrial kingdom.” It is hard to say whether they were right or wrong: but there was whispering amazement tin Essien when it was known what choice she had made. The old grey men of the council stared, at one another in horror, and exclaimed: "Himmel! she is going to marry for love!” That miK-h was true. Tiie heiress of. the house of Krupp had sent away tiha prinr-e- and chosen a simple gentleman l , a clean-bred man of study and worldly affairs. Herr Gustav von Bohlen und Halba-'h is counsellor of the Prussian Legation to the Vatican. He was born at The Hague in 1870. his father being' then Minister from the gran t dudhy of Baden to the kingdom of Holland. He studied at the Vniver-ity of Lrusunne, at .Strassburg, anl finally at Heidelberg, where he took the degree of doctor of law. And then he travelled abroad, vtsiting England anl the United States. A dozen years ago he entered the diplomatic service. He was sent to London, to Washington. to Peking—at last to Rome. Herr von Bohlen's career has been a plain and honourable one. He has little personal wealth, though hi- family possesses fair estates. H? belongs t.. th" lesser nobility. bt»t by marriage the Hal-bach-Boldens are kin to the reigning funnily of Linpe and to the great house of I.ippe-Biesterfi 14. Anl so he brings to the heiress of Essen a little of the gilt and glamour of sovereign things. Wrthal, an l of equal importance, be is a harvksonie, up-damling man. wise in the world. geirtle-mann.-red. He kmw the Httle heiress in the old. happy days when Krupp 11. reigned in Essen, when aristocrats from all the German worhl thronged to the industrial -ourt; ami it may be he carried a memory of her through all Iris travels. The Berlin folk aver that the Kaiser bunt-elf nuate tho match, entering, in fine 01. l despotic, fashion, these two young people to &-U

in iove and marry. The story told, in Keen of the wooing is prettier Him ouch gbesip.

Certain representatives of the Italian arnrj- were sent to E-.sen to discuss plans for new guns. With them came a German military attache, and, in an idlld moment, Herr von Bohlen, the legationsrath. He, -having notlsing to do with the business, strolled out into the towd. <Tf old he had known it well, with its Haring cbiuHieys and roaring funnete, its rows of decent workmen's homes; and he went on to the old folks’ cotony. There, in quaint little c-bttages, clambered over by flowers and vines, those who have toiled for the hotsse of Krupp pass their old age in ease and neighbourly comfort. Tire old women sit knitting in the doorways; the. old men smoke and gossip in the sunny gardens; and the children—they who shall tod for the house of Krupp some day—romp on the grass. On one of these doorsteps a girl sat. She wore a brown Mouse like the women <jf-the town, and her hat was off. Around her knees a half-dozen children had gathered—one had climbed into her lap; and with great mystery the girl was ■whispering to them a story of the Essen, fairies, red and white, who live in the palaces of molten steel. The man had long been an exile from the Fatherland, and. the pceture went home to his heart —"the dear German girl!” He had never seen anything so charming, so wholesome, so kindly, so German: he stopped in the road and watched the little group. At la-t the girl looked up and said, “Why, it's you!” And he. too, said: "Why. it'? you!” And they both went away together through the city of iron and flame. This is the story they tell in Essen; but they tell it in so many ways that it may be as fabulous as the adventures of the steel fairies—those who dance and scream in the molten metal. At any rate, they were engaged, and la-tc-r married. From the contract of betrothal you may learn that the full name of the heiress is "Antoinette Bertha Krupp, born March 2ft. 1886." Her lius-l-aml is her elder bv 16 years.