VAST KRUPP HOME STANDS UNDAMAGED

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5290, 31 December 1946, Page 2

VAST KRUPP HOME STANDS UNDAMAGED

NOW OFFK'E fiUILDING PABUiLQUiS MANiSION OP GERMAN MtlNITIONS KING Th'e showplace liome of the Kru'pp family stands lmdamaged only a few miles from the bomb-blasted' Krupp munitions works and the shattered homes of the steel n^orkers and coal miners. A four-storeyed, gray stone 'building! sunrounded. by green acres — like a city hall in the middle of Central Park— it is known simply as Villa Hugel; the ^'House on the Hill." Once. occupied: by nine Knupps, mother, father, antdi seven children, che vast domicile serves now as an office for almost 500 workers of the British-operated North German Control, in charge of Ruhr eoal production. The Krupps have left, 'but there are ,many traces of the majesti: scale on which the family lived. . Their dining room table measuref 6.0 feet from end to end, and they had single-piece tablecloths long enough t o cover it. !N!ow, with a number of overlapping cloths to cover the table, 120 Britisi Military Government officers eat there with members of a French coal commission. The table by no nieans oocupiee all the space in the room, and hae been moved a bit to one side to permit the addition of eight or ten smaller tables for four. Mammoth Library To the rear of the dining room and. overlooking a grotto or wall'ed garden with fountains, is a library with 27,000 volumes. Written in i number of languages, they concern mostly art and politics. Members of the staff are welcome to borrow the books. The Krupp librarian still pute in an appearance every day to tkeei the catalogues in order. The main reception hall, more thai .100 feet. long, is lined with 16 largc oil paintings, chiefly of the Krupi and the Emperor's family. The floorin^ is of polished parquet and, 2f feet overhead, is the oak earved ceil ing. For lighting, five chandelier. with 400 bulbs hang above. Above the reception room and o' equal prqportions is a 'ballroom witl a high-arched glass roof. Temporarj partitions have ibeen erected in th( ballroom, which serves as a mair. office. Executive offices are in lounge rooms off the ballroom. No rain' falls on the ballroom'; glass roof, for above that is something of a solarium, covered by another roof. Catwalks in the solariuni give e visitor an impression of being on the bridge of a ship. There is a command ing view of the hills and farm courtry around the Baldeney See Kiver. American troops used -the catwalk: as an artillery observation postyfo:directly fire against Werden, the nex town to the south. A guide insisted there was a swim ! ming pool in the basement of th( immense buildiiig, but got lost an couldn't find it, He showed a pictur of the pool, tiled with a wrough iron fence around it and a statu of a smiling cupid. . Alfred Krupp, the man who brough world-wide fame to the family name began construction of the house i 1870. He intended it to be fit fc visits by kjfngs anid emperors, bu he declined to describe the- place a a castle. He gave. it the- name Vill Huegel. While devoting much attention 1 the massive structure itself, he in:: ported whole avenues of trees to en hance the grounds. Amid the' shrub; there are two ponds, one stocked witl .carp. Scattered about the grounds ar statues. One, of a collie dog, appear. to have been erected' by the Krup children as a memorial to their pet: The base bears names such as Spori Lumpi, Rooti, Fix, Fox and Noix Tbe dog's head is broken. Nearby lies the tail of a bom' and a piece of fuselage from an aii plane that apparently had exploded i the sky.