Gustav Georg Friedrich Maria Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach was a German foreign service official who became chairman of the board of Friedrich Krupp AG, a heavy industry conglomerate, after his marriage to Bertha Krupp, who had inherited the company. 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 and the Paris Gun, among other inventions, under Gustav. Following World War II, plans to prosecute him as a war criminal at the 1945 Nuremberg Trials were dropped because by then he was bedridden, senile, and considered medically unfit for trial. The charges against him were held in abeyance in case he were found fit for trial.

Krupp, also known as Friedrich Krupp AG and later Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp after acquiring Hoesch AG in 1991, was the largest company in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century as well as Germany's premier weapons manufacturer during both world wars. From the Thirty Years' War to the end of World War II, it produced battleships, U-boats, tanks, howitzers, guns, utilities, and hundreds of other commodities. The company also produced steel used to build railroads in the United States and to cap the Chrysler Building.