Gustav Krupp Quotes
Unanimously we will confess and pledge ourselves to stand behind the Fuehrer and his movement today and forever and thereby to be of service to the idea of eternal Germany.
Nuernberg Military Tribunals. Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals Under Control Council Law No. 10. Vol. 9, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1950.
He had abdicated and was serving as the Governor of the Bahamas at the time. While the public was given the reason for has abdication as his love for a divorced woman, his pro Nazi viewpoints which were not publicly known in England, made him unacceptable and his treason a danger to England at war with Nazi Germany.
This is an important quotation because it shows that Franco was not only a Fascist but one who supported and approved of Hitler personally and his criminal programs. Most Spaniards have thereafter regretted that the Spanish Dictator could take such a murderous and inhumane position on behalf of the Spanish people. Franco was supported only by some of the very wealthy, part of the military and the Catholic Church leadership. The latter also makes this quotation important, in that it is very doubtful that the Spanish church leaders would support Hitler if the Pope and the Vatican were opposed to Hitler and the Nazis. Yet some Vatican representatives have maintained that the Pope was definitely opposed to Hitler and Nazism, but the evidence for this is not strong. This quotation tends to lend more credence to the Papal critics.
Gustav Georg Friedrich Maria Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach ran the German Friedrich Krupp AG heavy industry conglomerate from 1909 until 1941. He and his son Alfried would lead the company through two world wars, producing almost everything for the German war machine from U-boats, battleships, howitzers, trains, railway guns, machine guns, cars, tanks, and much more. Krupp produced the Tiger I tank, Big Bertha, the Paris Gun, among other inventions under Gustav. Following the war, plans to prosecute Gustav Krupp as a war criminal at the 1945 Nuremberg Trials were dropped because by then he was bedridden and senile (medically unfit for trial; his charges were still held against just in case he recovered).
