IBM and the Holocaust

As a kid, we had a rotary phone and a stack of IBM punch cards for taking messages since my father was an IBM employee. (Not to mention the boxes of lint-free rags and bottles of lubricating oil and isopropyl alcohol all emblazoned with the IBM logo.) I thought of those cards while reading Edwin Black's IBM and the Holocaust which details the company's involvement with the Reich and how it abetted the Nazis in killing millions. Black is the child of Holocaust survivors and the book is the result of his pursuit to answer the question of how the Nazis devised their lists of names which they used to round up Jews around Europe to be sent to camps to die.

The U.S. Census Bureau was not looking forward to the 1890 census. With population booming, estimates of time to sort and count the data by hand were exceeding ten years. A young engineer by the name of Herman Hollerith took up the challenge. He took inspiration from an unlikely place - the Jacquard Loom. I'll let James Burke explain:



Hollerith invented the punch card sorter with his first prototype having been constructed in 1884. The tabulator would count cards "with standardized holes, each representing a different trait: gender, nationality, occupation, and so forth. The card would then be fed into a "reader." By virtue of easily adjustable spring mechanisms and brief electrical brush contacts sensing for the holes, the cards could be "read" as they raced through a mechanical feeder. The processed cards could then be sorted into stacks based on a specified series of punched holes."

Needless to say, the machine made plowing through census data (and others) a breeze and was a great success. So you can imagine just how eager Adolph Hitler was to utilize them for Germany's 1933 census and to help him solve his "Jewish problem".

Thomas J. Watson was general manager of the Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation which he renamed IBM in 1924. As the company's president, Watson was an imposing figure who oversaw IBM as it grew into an international company with subsidiaries abroad while he became a titan of industry with connections to FDR in the White House. A cutthroat pragmatist, Watson did whatever it took to bolster the bottom line which, during this time, was mainly.

IBM's involvement with Hitler's Reich began with Dehomag (Deutsche Hollerith-Maschinen Gesellschaft mbH), the company's German subsidiary. Hitler comes to power and immediately puts into motion census plans for Germany. As the 1930s wore on, these plans would extend to conquered territories as well. The idea was not to just get a head count, but rather to find out who was Jewish and who was not.

Black meticulously shows how IBM was with the Reich every step of the way as discrimination turned into pogroms turned into genocide. He does not give any evidence that Watson was an anti-Semite; rather it was all about money. IBM could not keep up with demand for Hollerith machines nor the punch cards as the Reich's appetite was insatiable. This was good for business. The Reich could not efficiently exterminate European Jewry without IBM and the Reich was IBM's seconded biggest customer behind the U.S. government with new data processing needs because of FDR's new-fangled Social Security program. In fact, Hitler awarded Watson the Merit Cross of the German Eagle with Star for his service to the Reich via Hollerith machines.



As Black documents with numerous New York Times headlines, the world was not unaware of the increasing anti-Semitic fervor of the Germans which spread with every territory they conquered. Instead of making Watson rethink his involvement with the Reich, these stories only strengthened his resolve to give himself and the rest of IBM management in New York plausible deniability and to work hard at ensuring that profits from European subsidiaries would end up in their coffers instead of the Nazi's. This became more difficult when Germany unleashed the blitzkrieg upon Poland in September 1939 and more so again in December 1941 when the United States entered the conflict. To distance IBM NY from Dehomag, IBM Geneva acted as an intermediary for official business and Watson's contacts in the federal government gained him the use of State Department officials who carried communiqués in their diplomatic pouches, amongst other favors for IBM.

And so Black found an answer to his question. It was Hollerinth machines and punch cards (the supply of which IBM had a stranglehold on) that created that list which held the names of his parents.

IBM and the Holocaust was a fascinating read in many ways. But perhaps the most interesting was its perspective. I am used to reading about World War II in the form of accounts of battles – Pearl Harbor, the Battle of the Bulge, Leyte Gulf, D-Day, etc. Here, however, this story is really about the vast information infrastructure of the Reich and tales of data processing aren't usually what comes to mind when I think of WWII.

It is also the story of IBM's amoral quest for profits. While I'd love to say that the company was punished after the war, I cannot. Just as with Chrysler, the savings & loan scandal, and the recent Bear Sterns bailout, the government felt IBM was too important for punishment. Instead, the powers of our government were used to help IBM reclaim its Hollerith machines (which were leased to customers, not sold) and its profits from wore-torn European banks. The machines were scattered all across Europe and special Army squads were established to secure the machines after Germany surrendered. (I don't think Stephen Ambrose ever wrote about these guys.) They would be used to help rebuild the continent.