Edwin Black (1950--) IBM and the Holocaust (2001).
The strategic alliance between Nazi Germany and America's most powerful corporation.
To my daughter, Rachel, who will read this book, and to six million who will not.
Part Three. XI. France and Holland
...Cascading chaos as Germany sought to count Jews and others in France ensuredthat the multifarious census and registration efforts would not only be misreported, misunderstood, and mishandled throughout the war years, but would be misinterpreted for decades after liberation as well.5
A fundamental cause of France's profound counting disarray arose from its decentralized, almost anarchic, registration infrastructure. Registration was not implemented by professional statisticians or experienced census offices. With no one to do the job properly, Germany assigned it to the nation's police departments, the prefectures. That stood to reason, since police departments for years were accustomed to registering refugee Jews who entered their jurisdiction. Each prefecture executed its own count in its own way, employing its own interpretations, and not always using the same forms as the next prefecture. They did not use punch cards, but small colored pieces of paper and index cards. The machines they utilized were not IBM Holleriths whirring at great speed, but Remington typewriters with sticking keys that constantly broke down. Pen and pencil were readily used when typing ribbon was not available.
...Carmille was sent to Dachau, prisoner 76608, where he died of exhaustion on January 25, 1945. He was posthumously honored as a patriot although his role in dramatically reducing the number of Jewish deaths in France was never really known and in some cases doubted. How many lives he saved will never be tabulated. After the war, Lentz explained he was just a public servant. He was tried, but only on unrelated charges, for which he was sentenced to three years imprison.
Holland had Lentz. France had Carmille. Holland had a well-entrenched Hollerith infrastructure. France's punch card infrastructure was in complete disarray.
The final numbers:
Of an estimated 140,000 Dutch Jews, more than 107,000 were deported, and of those 102,000 were murdered-a death ratio of approximately 73 percent.
Of an estimated 300,000 to 350,000 Jews living in France, both zones, about 85,000 were deported-of these barely 3,000 survived. The death ratio in France was approximately 25 percent.
Part Three. XII IBM and the War
...After reviewing Treasury license requests, media reports, financial filings, intelligence intercepts from Switzerland, and other materials, Carter concluded that IBM had constructed a unique international cartel responsible for about 90 percent of the punch card technology in the world. This included Nazi Germany, which had developed an extraordinary punch card industry used extensively for all manner of commerce, aggression, and persecution. Carter concluded that IBM's cartel and its special leasing practices, as well as its complete control of the punch cards needed to operate Hollerith systems, meant that the company possessed a virtual monopoly on the technology. But far more than that, because of its grip on punch cards and spare parts, and its ownership of all machines, IBM exercised virtual dominion over any Hollerith's day-to-day ability to function. As a result, IBM wielded a crucial continuing impact on Nazi Germany's ability to plan and wage war.
...He entitled his undated draft "Control in Busines Machines." … This is a story of a peculiar type of cartel. Generally speaking, the cartel arrangements which have been heretofore considered deal with instances wherein the cartel control stems from Germany, or one of the other Axis countries, and into the United States for the purpose of curtailing production of critical materials following a deliberate plan of Nazi economic warfare. Previously a villain like I.G. Farben or Siemens Halske has reached its tentacles into American Industry and curtailed production through patents, licensing agreements, and other types of control. This story deals with an American firm which has deprived not only our own citizens by limiting supply but also the citizenry of the world. Americans and Germans alike have felt the pinching hand of Thomas J. Watson and International Business Machinery manifested through universal limited production and international high prices. In this case, the monopoly control originates in the United States and operates throughout the world. And what Hitler has done to us through his economic warfare, one of our own American corporations has also done. In this "arsenal of democracy," which supplies materiel for over half the warring world, limited production spells our worst enemy. Hence IBM is in a class with the Nazis.
Further, we have a peculiar clash of interests. This [World War] is a conflict of warlike nationalistic states, each having certain interests. Yet we frequently find these interests clashing diametrically with the opposing interests of international corporate structures, more huge and powerful than nations. These corporate entities are manned not by staffs of citizens of any nation, but by citizens of the world looking solely to the corporate interest and pledging loyalty thereto. We see revealed [in] this clash, this dichotomy of culture between our nation and an international corporation whose interests do not coincide. . . .
...Ironically, none of IBM's subsidiaries were on the Proclaimed List because they fell into a double-edged corporate identity as "American-owned property." The same applied to all American-owned subsidiaries in Axis-controlled lands. So even though corporate parents, such as IBM, were not permitted to communicate with their own subsidiaries because they were in Axis territory, these companies were deemed American property to be protected. In fact, since IBM only leased the machines, every Dehomag machine, whether deployed at the Waffen-SS office in Dachau or an insurance office in Rome, was considered American property to be protected.
Hence, Dehomag could simultaneously exist as a U.S. interest and a tool of the Nazis doing business with the same Farben and Siemens entities that brought other American companies utter denunciation and often prosecution.
...No wonder the British Foreign Office was increasingly disturbed at America's blacklisting inconsistencies. One confidential memo from the British Embassy regarding the blacklist evoked a handwritten marginal note: "It is only too clear that where U.S. trade interests are involved, these are being allowed to take precedence over 'hemispheric defense,' and . . . over cooperation with us."
To my daughter, Rachel, who will read this book, and to six million who will not.
Part Three. XI. France and Holland
...Cascading chaos as Germany sought to count Jews and others in France ensuredthat the multifarious census and registration efforts would not only be misreported, misunderstood, and mishandled throughout the war years, but would be misinterpreted for decades after liberation as well.5
A fundamental cause of France's profound counting disarray arose from its decentralized, almost anarchic, registration infrastructure. Registration was not implemented by professional statisticians or experienced census offices. With no one to do the job properly, Germany assigned it to the nation's police departments, the prefectures. That stood to reason, since police departments for years were accustomed to registering refugee Jews who entered their jurisdiction. Each prefecture executed its own count in its own way, employing its own interpretations, and not always using the same forms as the next prefecture. They did not use punch cards, but small colored pieces of paper and index cards. The machines they utilized were not IBM Holleriths whirring at great speed, but Remington typewriters with sticking keys that constantly broke down. Pen and pencil were readily used when typing ribbon was not available.
...Carmille was sent to Dachau, prisoner 76608, where he died of exhaustion on January 25, 1945. He was posthumously honored as a patriot although his role in dramatically reducing the number of Jewish deaths in France was never really known and in some cases doubted. How many lives he saved will never be tabulated. After the war, Lentz explained he was just a public servant. He was tried, but only on unrelated charges, for which he was sentenced to three years imprison.
Holland had Lentz. France had Carmille. Holland had a well-entrenched Hollerith infrastructure. France's punch card infrastructure was in complete disarray.
The final numbers:
Of an estimated 140,000 Dutch Jews, more than 107,000 were deported, and of those 102,000 were murdered-a death ratio of approximately 73 percent.
Of an estimated 300,000 to 350,000 Jews living in France, both zones, about 85,000 were deported-of these barely 3,000 survived. The death ratio in France was approximately 25 percent.
Part Three. XII IBM and the War
...After reviewing Treasury license requests, media reports, financial filings, intelligence intercepts from Switzerland, and other materials, Carter concluded that IBM had constructed a unique international cartel responsible for about 90 percent of the punch card technology in the world. This included Nazi Germany, which had developed an extraordinary punch card industry used extensively for all manner of commerce, aggression, and persecution. Carter concluded that IBM's cartel and its special leasing practices, as well as its complete control of the punch cards needed to operate Hollerith systems, meant that the company possessed a virtual monopoly on the technology. But far more than that, because of its grip on punch cards and spare parts, and its ownership of all machines, IBM exercised virtual dominion over any Hollerith's day-to-day ability to function. As a result, IBM wielded a crucial continuing impact on Nazi Germany's ability to plan and wage war.
...He entitled his undated draft "Control in Busines Machines." … This is a story of a peculiar type of cartel. Generally speaking, the cartel arrangements which have been heretofore considered deal with instances wherein the cartel control stems from Germany, or one of the other Axis countries, and into the United States for the purpose of curtailing production of critical materials following a deliberate plan of Nazi economic warfare. Previously a villain like I.G. Farben or Siemens Halske has reached its tentacles into American Industry and curtailed production through patents, licensing agreements, and other types of control. This story deals with an American firm which has deprived not only our own citizens by limiting supply but also the citizenry of the world. Americans and Germans alike have felt the pinching hand of Thomas J. Watson and International Business Machinery manifested through universal limited production and international high prices. In this case, the monopoly control originates in the United States and operates throughout the world. And what Hitler has done to us through his economic warfare, one of our own American corporations has also done. In this "arsenal of democracy," which supplies materiel for over half the warring world, limited production spells our worst enemy. Hence IBM is in a class with the Nazis.
Further, we have a peculiar clash of interests. This [World War] is a conflict of warlike nationalistic states, each having certain interests. Yet we frequently find these interests clashing diametrically with the opposing interests of international corporate structures, more huge and powerful than nations. These corporate entities are manned not by staffs of citizens of any nation, but by citizens of the world looking solely to the corporate interest and pledging loyalty thereto. We see revealed [in] this clash, this dichotomy of culture between our nation and an international corporation whose interests do not coincide. . . .
...Ironically, none of IBM's subsidiaries were on the Proclaimed List because they fell into a double-edged corporate identity as "American-owned property." The same applied to all American-owned subsidiaries in Axis-controlled lands. So even though corporate parents, such as IBM, were not permitted to communicate with their own subsidiaries because they were in Axis territory, these companies were deemed American property to be protected. In fact, since IBM only leased the machines, every Dehomag machine, whether deployed at the Waffen-SS office in Dachau or an insurance office in Rome, was considered American property to be protected.
Hence, Dehomag could simultaneously exist as a U.S. interest and a tool of the Nazis doing business with the same Farben and Siemens entities that brought other American companies utter denunciation and often prosecution.
...No wonder the British Foreign Office was increasingly disturbed at America's blacklisting inconsistencies. One confidential memo from the British Embassy regarding the blacklist evoked a handwritten marginal note: "It is only too clear that where U.S. trade interests are involved, these are being allowed to take precedence over 'hemispheric defense,' and . . . over cooperation with us."