KRUPP’S WORKS AT ESSEN

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1721, 5 June 1917, Page 1

KRUPP’S WORKS AT ESSEN

The development of Krupp’s works at Essen has been described in the Frankfort Gazette by Herr Adolf Koster, (lie German war correspondent. lie describes Krupp’s works as bavin" been in time of peace “ a kingdom of work/' - but as having become in time of war “tlm greatest private undertaking of the country, which renders Germany the most important services." Herr Koster writes: —This private undertaking represents to-day a labour army of at lea.-1 two corps —picked troops from Germany'.-: Home Army, admittedly superior in quality .to many armies of our enemies, and well-proved in many victories on water and on land. Krupp’s to-day is half-nationalised, like every large private- undertaking. The number of Krupp workmen and officials has grown mightily since the autumn of 1.11.14. In quality the workers and officials are necessarily different from what they once were. The field army, with its claims, has made a. big inroad on personnel, especially at the beginning of the war. Today women constitute one-fourth of the whole personnel; a strong women’s division helps to maintain the largest German private undertaking. The women work in the offices and in the workshops, many of them not far from the furnaces. The managers express high appreciation of their achievements —especially in the workshops. . . . Krupp’s was at Essen always a town in itself. During the war this town has grown in American fashion far beyond the frontiers of Essen. Many thousands of acres of ground that lay unused are now covered with sheds of iron and glass, with red factories, and wooden barracks for the thousands of workmen who have poured in and find nowhere to live in the town. While the politicians talk of peace, whole munition towns are growing out of the earth, here is Essen as in other parts of the German Empire. Kew sheds are constantly accommodating new masses of workmen, whose services have been made available by (he Auxiliary Service Law,