Breakdown of Trotz der Krise macht das Unternehmen Gewinn.
machen
to make, to do
die Krise
the crisis
das Unternehmen
the company (enterprise)
trotz
despite
Questions & Answers about Trotz der Krise macht das Unternehmen Gewinn.
Why does the sentence use der Krise when Krise is a feminine noun?
Because the preposition trotz (despite) requires the genitive case. In the genitive case, the feminine article die changes to der. So, die Krise becomes der Krise.
Since der Krise is also the dative form of die Krise, how do we know this is actually genitive?
You can't tell just by looking at this specific noun, because the feminine article changes to der in both the dative and genitive cases! However, the strict grammatical rule is that trotz requires the genitive. As a side note, in casual spoken German, many native speakers actually use the dative case after trotz, which becomes obvious when using masculine or neuter nouns (like saying trotz dem Regen instead of trotz des Regens).
Why does the verb macht come before the subject das Unternehmen?
This is a great example of the Verb-Second (V2) rule in German. The entire prepositional phrase Trotz der Krise takes up the first position in the sentence. The conjugated verb macht must stay in position two, which pushes the subject das Unternehmen into position three.
Why is there no article before Gewinn?
While you can say einen Gewinn machen (to make a profit), it is very common in German to drop the article for general business or financial activities. The phrase Gewinn machen acts as a fixed expression meaning 'to make profit' or 'to be profitable'.