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. XIV. The Spoils of Genocide, I
...The mass of overlapping data would enable IBM tabulators to triangulate on the intended target: anyone of Jewish ancestry-even if the person were unaware of it.
...By September 1942, Eichmann had readied a schedule for Romanian Railroads to transport some 280,000 of those Jews to Belzec's gas chambers. But by now, Romania's Antonescu was reluctant to cooperate further. Like other Nazi surrogates in Eastern Europe, Antonescu feared the onslaught of the Russians, and rumors circulated of a forthcoming war crimes announcement. Jewish bribes-including 100 million lei to Antonescu's personal physician-also helped. The trains did not roll.
...IBM's subsidiary in Sofia, formed on March 17, 1938, was Watson Business Machines Corporation, Ltd. Its single most important customer was the Bulgarian Railroads. As with virtually all railroads since the turn of the century, punch cards made it possible to efficiently schedule trains, locate rolling stock, and deploy boxcars. Without Holleriths, it could take any European railway company up to two weeks to locate its boxcars in peacetime. In wartime, fast deployment was even more difficult. Using Holleriths at every major stop, train authorities could schedule within forty-eight hours. For this reason, whatever part of the war or the genocide that ran on track and rail was vitally dependent on IBM.
... The Reich's last regular payment to Yugoslav Watson, issued April 3, 1945, remitted RM 3,114.15. On April 20, 1945, with the Red Army at the outskirts of Berlin, the enemy custodian submitted a special invoice of RM 51,970.24 for various services. Wehrmacht paymasters remitted the money just before the collapse of the Third Reich, but in the turmoil, the custodian could not deposit the check. Instead, he kept it safe, and later, on August 2, 1945, handed it to Capt. Arthur D. Reed, the U.S. Army's Property Control Officer, for transmission to IBM NY.
Part Three. XV. The Spoils of Genocide, II
...As early as December 1943, the United States government concluded that Hitler's Holleriths were strategic machines to save, not destroy. Dehomag's equipment held the keys to a smooth military occupation of Germany and the other Axis territories. By June 1944, Carter's investigative reports on IBM and Dehomag had been adapted into a confidential War Department Pamphlet, 31-123, entitled Civil Affairs Guide: Preservation and Use of Key Records in Germany. Over several dozen pages, key government and Party offices were listed by street address with a description of their punch card machines and data. On page 18, the Ministry of Labor entry declared, "Their records are of the utmost importance as they are the means by which the Germans controlled and shifted manpower, and should therefore be a valuable source of information for the occupying authorities. On pages 19-20, the Ministry of Transportation entry explained, "The up-to-date reports disclose the location and number of trains available in each territory, traffic density, tonnage over a particular line, type of cars used, type of materials shipped. . . . As the smooth running of the railroad system is of primary importance . . . in administering the occupied territory, all records should be placed under military custody."
...German forces were just as eager to safeguard their IBM equipment, albeit for their own reasons. As the Allies liberated territories from the east and west, precious machines were moved behind defensible lines for the Reich's continued use. As late as 1945, der Führer himself had issued a decree placing a new emphasis on punch card technology for registering and tracking all Germans needed for the defense of the Reich. He appointed Karl-Hermann Frank, former military governor of occupied Czechoslovakia as a new plenipotentiary for punch card registration. Frank would be able to supercede the authority of the Maschinelles Berichtwesen (MB), the Zentral Institut, and all other party and state offices. "In this capacity, he has to answer to me personally," declared Hitler. Der Führer added that the committee advising Frank would be chaired by Rudolf Schmeer, the official who spoke for the Party at the original 1934 opening of Dehomag's Lichterfelde factory. Schmeer still enjoyed a commanding role at the MB.
More than just the strategic need to evacuate the equipment to safer ground, Hitler's Holleriths constituted damning evidence. Hence, when concentration camps were abandoned, the machines were moved and files destroyed to obliterate the record of war crimes. In many cases, Hollerith devices from various Reich sites were not redeployed, but simply hidden to keep them from Allied confiscation. However, as the Allies closed in on Berlin, military intelligence tracked many of the machines.
To my daughter, Rachel, who will read this book, and to six million who will not.
Part Three. XIV. The Spoils of Genocide, I
...The mass of overlapping data would enable IBM tabulators to triangulate on the intended target: anyone of Jewish ancestry-even if the person were unaware of it.
...By September 1942, Eichmann had readied a schedule for Romanian Railroads to transport some 280,000 of those Jews to Belzec's gas chambers. But by now, Romania's Antonescu was reluctant to cooperate further. Like other Nazi surrogates in Eastern Europe, Antonescu feared the onslaught of the Russians, and rumors circulated of a forthcoming war crimes announcement. Jewish bribes-including 100 million lei to Antonescu's personal physician-also helped. The trains did not roll.
...IBM's subsidiary in Sofia, formed on March 17, 1938, was Watson Business Machines Corporation, Ltd. Its single most important customer was the Bulgarian Railroads. As with virtually all railroads since the turn of the century, punch cards made it possible to efficiently schedule trains, locate rolling stock, and deploy boxcars. Without Holleriths, it could take any European railway company up to two weeks to locate its boxcars in peacetime. In wartime, fast deployment was even more difficult. Using Holleriths at every major stop, train authorities could schedule within forty-eight hours. For this reason, whatever part of the war or the genocide that ran on track and rail was vitally dependent on IBM.
... The Reich's last regular payment to Yugoslav Watson, issued April 3, 1945, remitted RM 3,114.15. On April 20, 1945, with the Red Army at the outskirts of Berlin, the enemy custodian submitted a special invoice of RM 51,970.24 for various services. Wehrmacht paymasters remitted the money just before the collapse of the Third Reich, but in the turmoil, the custodian could not deposit the check. Instead, he kept it safe, and later, on August 2, 1945, handed it to Capt. Arthur D. Reed, the U.S. Army's Property Control Officer, for transmission to IBM NY.
Part Three. XV. The Spoils of Genocide, II
...As early as December 1943, the United States government concluded that Hitler's Holleriths were strategic machines to save, not destroy. Dehomag's equipment held the keys to a smooth military occupation of Germany and the other Axis territories. By June 1944, Carter's investigative reports on IBM and Dehomag had been adapted into a confidential War Department Pamphlet, 31-123, entitled Civil Affairs Guide: Preservation and Use of Key Records in Germany. Over several dozen pages, key government and Party offices were listed by street address with a description of their punch card machines and data. On page 18, the Ministry of Labor entry declared, "Their records are of the utmost importance as they are the means by which the Germans controlled and shifted manpower, and should therefore be a valuable source of information for the occupying authorities. On pages 19-20, the Ministry of Transportation entry explained, "The up-to-date reports disclose the location and number of trains available in each territory, traffic density, tonnage over a particular line, type of cars used, type of materials shipped. . . . As the smooth running of the railroad system is of primary importance . . . in administering the occupied territory, all records should be placed under military custody."
...German forces were just as eager to safeguard their IBM equipment, albeit for their own reasons. As the Allies liberated territories from the east and west, precious machines were moved behind defensible lines for the Reich's continued use. As late as 1945, der Führer himself had issued a decree placing a new emphasis on punch card technology for registering and tracking all Germans needed for the defense of the Reich. He appointed Karl-Hermann Frank, former military governor of occupied Czechoslovakia as a new plenipotentiary for punch card registration. Frank would be able to supercede the authority of the Maschinelles Berichtwesen (MB), the Zentral Institut, and all other party and state offices. "In this capacity, he has to answer to me personally," declared Hitler. Der Führer added that the committee advising Frank would be chaired by Rudolf Schmeer, the official who spoke for the Party at the original 1934 opening of Dehomag's Lichterfelde factory. Schmeer still enjoyed a commanding role at the MB.
More than just the strategic need to evacuate the equipment to safer ground, Hitler's Holleriths constituted damning evidence. Hence, when concentration camps were abandoned, the machines were moved and files destroyed to obliterate the record of war crimes. In many cases, Hollerith devices from various Reich sites were not redeployed, but simply hidden to keep them from Allied confiscation. However, as the Allies closed in on Berlin, military intelligence tracked many of the machines.