Projects & publications

Digitalisation

Digitalisation has brought new tasks and opportunities for archives: In many places, archival materials are now being systematically digitalised, often supported by special research and funding projects. In this context, technology raises numerous questions: What is the best format for digitalisation to ensure that the information can still be found many years from now, and how do you deal with genuinely digital documents? The Krupp Historical Archive has been pushing ahead with digitalisation for some time already and is also involved in several third-party funded projects. The aim is to make archive records available online worldwide for research purposes and to minimise the physical impact on historical documents in the future.              

Use

The Krupp Historical Archive supports the utilisation of its collections in a variety of ways. Whether for scientists or students or even for documentary filmmakers and media representatives, the archive staff are called upon to utilise their expertise for public statements, project concepts and to support scientific studies. Above all, the archive is a source for internal use by the Krupp Foundation and the thyssenkrupp group of companies. It does, for example, support projects of the Foundation by providing information and media and is serving as an advisor and repository of knowledge. On the hill, the archive supports construction, refurbishment and renovation projects that would hardly be feasible to carry out properly without historical sources. Within the company, it contributes to legal certainty and historical communication, it helps to clarify property issues and participation histories and much more. It is indispensable as a long-term memory.

Communication

It is a misconception that archivists spend the majority of their time in storage rooms like little grey mice. Collections need to be shown and analysed, which is why the Krupp Historical Archive is very active in communication and outreach work: In addition to lectures on historical topics, archive staff also take part in digital formats such as an archive walk, which provides insights into archive work in social networks. Exhibitions – both in traditional analogue as well as in digital form – are another building block in the Krupp Archive’s outreach work. Loaning out exhibits, the archive is regularly present in museums and exhibition centres.        

Archive Stories

Our Archive Stories focus on sources from the varied collections of the Krupp Archive. These objects, often selected for special occasions or anniversaries, shed light on extraordinary topics, people and events from over 200 years of Krupp history. They tell exemplary stories about the Krupp company, the family and the Villa Hügel. In many cases, they reach far beyond that and are part of German and international history.

Focal point: Photography

Photography is part of the Krupp DNA: In the early 1860s, Alfred Krupp was already aware of the importance of photographic presentation and documentation. The photographs taken by the factory photography department that he founded form the basis of today’s photo collections in the Krupp Historical Archive: By now, it holds more than 2.5 million photographs that can be used to tell the story of the medium, from its beginnings in the 1840s to the digital present. The Krupp Foundation, as owner of the archive, also consistently supports photography by initiating scholarship programmes for aspiring photo curators as well as artists, facilitating purchases for museum collections and promoting exhibitions as well as publications. Last but not least, the clear profile of the Krupp Historical Archive was the basis for becoming a co-founder of the Essen Institute of Photography.

The photographic heritage in the Krupp Archive offers a kaleidoscope of German history and provides answers to a wide range of questions relating to everyday life, technology, social, economic, political and cultural history. Photographs, however, present archivists with difficult problems of evaluation, storage and cataloguing, which have probably not been conclusively solved anywhere. At least the oldest and most important photographs in the Krupp Archive can be stored in an air-conditioned repository set up especially for this purpose in 2009. A large part has been digitalised by now.