Constructing Heimat in the Ruhr Valley: Assessing the historical significance of Krupp company housing from its origins through the National Socialist era, 1855-1941

As the central pillar of the Krupp steel firm’s much-publicized company
welfare initiatives, employee housing has played a vital role in shaping Krupp’s
corporate identity from 1855 to the present. The central objective of this
dissertation is to examine and critically assess primary and secondary sources
written about Krupp housing in order to determine its historical meaning and
impact. Previous historical writings on Krupp have predominantly overlooked the
fact that at the conclusion of World War One, Essen’s Friedrich Krupp A G was
not only Germany’s largest steel producer and leading armaments manufacturer,
but with over 12,000 units constructed also the nation’s largest private sector
provider of housing. While Krupp’s integral involvement in the German war
effort and the brutality of trench warfare would contribute to transforming its
international reputation from the “Armoury of the German Empire” to “Merchants
of Death”, domestic Heimatkultur [native culture] publications were heralding the
company’s housing initiatives as blueprints for planning the post-war communities
of returning soldiers. It is the fascinating dualism of the firm’s reputation as both
agents of mass destruction and apparent social welfare innovator that provides the
central impetus for this study.
This dissertation examines the social, economic, political and cultural forces
that combined to define the historical significance of Krupp housing activities. Of
particular interest in this regard was the role Germany’s largest industrial complex
played in promoting cultural perceptions about German housing. More
specifically, it depicts how Krupp’s extensive housing activities and marketing
strategies influenced the early development of the German Kleinsiedlung form
during a period (1892-1941) that spanned the Wilhelmine, Weimar and National
Socialist years. This study thus contributes another chapter to the growing
scholarly literature on the history of the German Kleinsiedlung that Tilman
Harlander has fittingly described as a ''spezifisch deutsche Geschichte” [specifically
German story]. Within this story Krupp’s company housing legacy represented a
Sonderweg [a distinct path].
After having analyzed and thoroughly contextualized the wide range of historical
writings on Krupp housing, I conclude that by 1918, three Krupp housing projects in
particular — the Altenhof, Margarethenhöhe, and Heimaterde — represented highly
influential and equally controversial working models of urban planning and social
engineering. The most pronounced historical impact of Krupp’s housing was that it was
not only portrayed but also interpreted as a very bold, large-scale intervention into
alleviating the housing crisis long before this problem was directly addressed by the
German state after World War One. Krupp not only possessed the initiative, but more
importantly, the financial means to transform theory into practice. In particular for
reformers of the political right, Krupp’s Sonderstellung [distinct status] in the German
political economy, combined with the absence of labour militancy in the nation’s most
heavily industrialized city, proved highly inspirational for their urban planning ideas.
Between the final years of the Weimar Republic and the outbreak of the Second World
War, this impact would reach unprecedented heights. When noted National Socialist
idealogue Gottfried Feder published his blueprint for the ideal new cities of the Third
Reich in Die Neue Stadt: Versuch der Begründung einer neuen Stadtplanlmnst aus der
sozialen Struktur der Bevölkerung [The New City: An attempt at founding a new
planning artform out of the social structure of the population] (1939), he cited Krupp’s
Margarethenhöhe and Heimaterde as „vorbildlich praktische Beispiele" [exemplary
practical examples] of „musterhaften Groβsiedlunger” [model large settlements].