The Krupps were steelmakers who, incidentally, first made their fortune exporting railroad wheels to the US. The three interlocking circles used as a Krupp trademark (now Thyssen-Krupp) are symbols of rail wheels, not gun barrels, as is often asserted. They did make heavy guns in both WWI and WWII, including the Paris Gun and the huge "Karl Gustav" used in the siege of Sebastopol in WWII.
As far as the Third Reich goes, the then head of the family chain-smoked Camels and in 1939, seeing where the winds were blowing, had a whole room in the family mansion stuffed with cartons of Camels.
There’s a great miniseries on Netflix on how Germany paid for rearming. Talks about the roles of the big industrial families.
It was a giant off books deal. Reminds me of the federal reserve and treasury printing money.
Guess he was hoping the war would end before the Camels ran out ...