At the time, Krupp AG was Europe's largest corporation and one of the largest corporations in the world, and Hugenberg's success in raising annual dividends from 8% in 1908 to 14% in 1913 won him much admiration in the world of German business. A more unwelcome appearance in the limelight occurred with the Kornwalzer affair, in which the Social Democrat MdR Karl Liebknecht exposed industrial espionage by Hugenberg. The management of Krupp AG did not even try to deny the allegations of bribery and industrial espionage, with Krupp arguing in a press article that any attack on the firm of Krupp AG was an attack on the ability of the German state to wage war by the socialist-pacifist SPD, and though several junior employees of Krupp AG were convicted of corruption, Hugenberg and the rest of the Krupp board were never indicted. In 1912, Kaiser Wilhelm II personally awarded Hugenberg the Order of the Red Eagle for his success at Krupp AG, saying that Germany needed more businessmen like Hugenberg. At the ceremony, Hugenberg praised the Kaiser in his acceptance speech, and went on to say that democracy would not improve the condition of the German working class, but only a "very much richer, very much greater and very much powerful Germany" would solve its problems. After the Social Democrats won the largest number of seats in the "Reichstag" in the 1912 elections, Hugenberg first became interested in the media as he believed that the right-wing parties such as the National Liberals and the Conservatives needed more newspapers to champion their views.