For the first time in Trade Paperback the massive, compelling book in which William Manchester brings to life Europe's richest, most powerful family, a 400-year dynasty that armed Germany in three major wars. Their cannon won the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. In 1871 they invented the first anti-aircraft gun to shoot down observation balloons. In WWI their mammoth weapons shelled Paris at a range of 81 miles. For 40 years they manufactured submarines, beginning with the U-1 that menaced Allied shipping. In 1940 their cannon actually shelled England from across the channel. The Krupps armed the forces of the Kaiser and financed Hitler's 'Terror Election' of 1933. Hitler honoured their loyalty by decreeing special tax exemptions that continued to bind a post-war West Germany. The Krupps even survived a Nuremberg conviction to become the dynamo behind the 'Common Market'.
- ISBN10 0316529400
- ISBN13 9780316529402
- Publish Date 4 March 2003 (first published May 1970)
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 12 April 2014
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Little, Brown & Company
- Edition New edition
- Format Paperback
- Pages 992
- Language English