IBM and the Holocaust

by Edwin Black

  One prominent American business magazine published an ad hominem and vitriolic review by a Reich-era business historian who tried his best to defend IBM. The review asserted, “When data processors finally appeared at some forced labor camps… they had little effect on the fates of the inmates.” It is hard to envision a program named Extermination by Labor that has “little effect on the fates of the inmates.” The misinformed reviewer then clamored that the SS Race and Settlement Office did not even receive its machines until 1943, as though this marginal agency was somehow vital to the extermination effort. Few know that the obscure SS Race and Settlement Office was a screening service for adoptions and marriages by SS officers, which is why it did not receive a machine until 1943, a point my book makes in two separate chapters. The Race and Settlement Office is so marginal, its work is unmentioned in virtually every standard Holocaust reference. The reviewer even tried to excuse Watson’s collaboration, writing, “Unless Watson was prepared to write off his assets in Germany… he had little choice but to put the best face on happenings there, or to bite his tongue, and cultivate good relations with German leaders.”

  The review in that business magazine was immediately condemned by the Anti-Defamation League as “morally bankrupt,” and they added that it “not only distorts the historical facts of the period, but virtually argues in favor of commercial collaboration with the Nazis…. Millions of dispossessed and exterminated Jews, had they known, would have hoped a major American corporation would have foregone the pursuit of these profits.” The business magazine promptly published my rebuttal, linked it and my own website to the archival article on its website, and then ran a second laudatory review, declaring, “With exhaustive research, Black makes the case that IBM and Watson conspired with Nazi Germany to help automate the genocide of Europe’s Jews.” The turnabout was obvious, but that did not stop IBM from continually distributing the first condemned review—and not the second—to other reviewers and inquiring historians.

  Defensive and misinformed conclusions and analysis are one thing, but I was astonished when a few eminent historians published—or tried to publish—highly detailed information out of thin air without a single document to justify it. For example, one esteemed reviewer in a major New York daily wrote with great authority that machines at Dachau were only used for payroll, or that they were installed at Buchenwald in August 1944 but then destroyed weeks later. I launched an international effort to locate even one document to support these groundless statements. The result was new discoveries (see the Afterword), which only deepened the original book’s findings. Wary of publishing false Holocaust information devoid of any basis in fact, the managing editor of the New York daily asked the book review editor and the reviewer to provide documents to support the statements. When no primary, secondary, or even tertiary documentation was forthcoming, the newspaper published my letter stating that the review “relies on many startling misstatements of known historical documentation. Several researchers have checked records in Germany and America, attempting to verify… [the reviewer’s] claims about Hollerith machines. We have been unable to locate a single historian, survivor, archivist, or editor anywhere who can produce even one Nazi-era document, oral testimony, or memoir to support” the assertions.

  Soon, other editors learned that eminent credentials were no guarantee of a factual review of IBM’s role in the Holocaust. One of the most reliable magazines of Israeli and Jewish affairs ran a review by a highly respected Holocaust author, again filled with ad hominem references. This review was filled with numerous errors and distortions, and concluded with this statement: “This strange type of pre-publication ‘peer review,’ in which the readers are chosen by Black, raises more than a few questions about the book’s reliability. Having spoken to several of them after they had read the book, I found that they all overlapped on one point: that Black took an interesting subject and built it up beyond proportion, probably in order to tell a better story.” The reviewer’s many false statements and errors were detailed to the magazine’s editor. Upon questioning, the historian confirmed to the astonished magazine editor that none of my pre-publication reviewers were actually contacted. The review was immediately pulled from the magazine’s website. My letter of correction was published shortly thereafter and the publication sent me an official letter of thanks.

  The best-read history journal in England abruptly cancelled a review submitted by one of Britain’s most distinguished Holocaust historians. That reviewer had asserted this bizarre technologic statement: “The Hollerith cards were inflexible, obviously subject to frequent human error, easily torn, and had to be programmed on a time-consuming one-by-one basis. It is not surprising that the Nazis did not use them on a regular basis in carrying out the Holocaust.” Punch cards were printed by the millions, not programmed one by one.

  At this writing, a prestigious Ivy League history journal has promised to intensely scrutinize before publishing a review by an eminent historian of Reich business until numerous complaints of errors can be resolved. Those complaints came to light when the challenged review was faxed to a historical institute just before my speaking engagement there—months before scheduled publication. A historian in New England is working on a joint letter with me retracting and correcting his mistaken review in a scholarly journal, which he admits unfortunately relied upon the business weekly’s review condemned by the ADL as a “distortion of history” and “morally bankrupt.” The New England reviewer, like several others, blindly repeated statements about the SS Race and Settlement Office, not knowing what the agency was. Many other publications have recanted, corrected, or cancelled error-filled reviews that engage in Hollerith denial.

  Although I was astonished by the statements of a few historians, my friends in academia simply chuckled. They had seen it many times before. Still, others involved in the study of Holocaust history did not find these misstatements humorous. “Most dismaying to me was the reaction of some of the Holocaust scholars I had come especially to respect,” says Wolfe, arguably one of the world’s most accomplished Holocaust scholars. He adds, “Some refused to read the book, others indulged in ad hominem attacks on its author. They are defensive because they were scooped…. I have always assumed that the essence of scholarship is… cogent interpretation of the best available sources. Perhaps it is embarrassing that most Holocaust experts (with the notable exception of the late Sybil Milton) missed the role of punch-cards in enabling the Third Reich… to engage in war crimes such as operating concentration camps where extermination through labor was conducted. Some of the most telling records of the amoral and profitable involvement of IBM with Nazi Germany were in my custody for a third of a century, but it took Edwin Black to draw their significance to my attention.”

  Ironically, while readying my Afterword, I issued a worldwide call for any corrections of “fact or fact context” that could be incorporated in the next edition. I asked for any documentation to be attached. The notice was repeatedly posted at the most visible Holocaust sites on the Internet, circulated to several dozen university history departments, and I even personally phoned likely critics soliciting corrections. None came. That said, one pre-publication reader did remind me to correct a few minor errors discovered just before publication of the hardcover involving the number and type of questions on nineteenth-century American census forms. We also corrected numerous typos. Other than that, the main chapters of the paperback are virtually identical to those of the hardcover.

  Fortunately, the few isolated instances of Hollerith denial were marginalized by most reputable historians and the public. People continued to demand accountability. Numerous lawsuits were filed or threatened against IBM by Jews in America, Poland, and France, and by Gypsies throughout Europe, seeking to open IBM’s archives. Ironically, some of these lawsuits were deemed to threaten the final financial reparations agreed to by Germany. Eventually, rather than endure months and years of additional delay due to any IBM litigation, U.S. and German
government officials as well as organizational leaders pressured the plaintiffs’ lawyers to desist. The U.S. State Department itself issued a statement announcing one lawsuit dismissal, asserting, “The primary remedy sought by the plaintiffs in the IBM case was the opening of IBM’s archives in relation to the World War II period. The United States strongly supports the opening of all archives, public and private, relating to the Holocaust era in order to facilitate further research and encourage greater understanding of the Holocaust and its historical context.” Unfortunately, other than the two partial transfers, none of the other archives has yet been opened. Nor did the carefully worded State Department statement indicate when those IBM archives might be opened.

  To date, IBM has never acknowledged or explained its twelve-year involvement with the Hitler regime. Nor has it apologized for its role in the Holocaust or the German war machine. Nor has it opened its numerous archives. I firmly believe that the people of IBM today are good people, many of them are friends. But IBM has received terrible advice from its public relations people. IBM should take a lesson from its Nazi customers—acknowledge and reveal its activities and move on. Instead, it seems, that IBM is hoping the matter will simply go away.

  But, the Holocaust will never go away. An entire community of young researchers is now combing the archives of Europe, Latin America, and the United States. Long after I have moved on to other book projects, new revelations about IBM’s role in the Holocaust will continue to emerge. As I said previously, I have only scratched the surface. The deeper the world digs, the darker and more documented the picture becomes.

  EDWIN BLACK

  Washington, D.C.

  September, 2001

  NOTES

  I: NUMBERED PEOPLE

  1. “Recollection of Hanna Levy-Hass” in Eberhard Kolb, Bergen-Belsen: From “Detention Camp” to Concentration Camp, 1943-45, trans. Gregory Claeys and Christine Lattke (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1985), p. 66; see Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. “Bergen-Belsen,” p. 611; Kolb, pp. 29, 41, 94, 98, as well as the photos; General Glyn-Hughes, Cite in Le grand livre des temoins, FNDIRP, Ramsey, 1995, p. 291; also see photos, The Nizkor Project, www.nizkor.org; Judith Jaegermann, “Memories of My Childhood in the Holocaust,” Oral History in A History of Jews in Hamburg, Hamburg University, www.rrz.uni-hamburg.

  2. Hadassah Rosensaft Collection, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) Photo Archives; Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. “Bergen-Belsen , “ p. 611; Kolb, p. 29.

  3. Hadassah Rosensaft crematorium photo, April 28, 1945, USHMM.

  4. Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. “Bergen-Belsen,” p. 612; Brigadier Hugh Llewelyn Glyn-Hughes in “Excerpts from The Belsen Trial, Pt. 2 of 5: Testimony Concerning Water and Food,” The Nizkor Project, www.nizkor.org; see Raymond Philips, ed., The Trial of Josef Kramer and 44 Others: The Belsen Trial (London: William Hodge and Co., 1949); Kolb, p. 40.

  5. Papers of Rudolf Martin Cheim, Joodsche Raad Voor Amsterdam, p. 26, YIVO RG804; Kolb, p. 29; see Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. “Bergen-Belsen , “ p. 611.

  6. Papers of Rudolf Martin Cheim, Joodsche Raad Voor Amsterdam, p. 26, YIVO RG804.

  7. Papers of Rudolf Martin Cheim, Joodsche Raad Voor Amsterdam, p. 26, YIVO RG804.

  8. Papers of Rudolf Martin Cheim, Joodsche Raad Voor Amsterdam, p. 26, YIVO RG804; see NA RG242/338, T1021, Roll 5, Frame 126.

  9. Papers of Rudolf Martin Cheim, Joodsche Raad Voor Amsterdam, pp. 26-27, YIVO RG804; see NA RG242/338, T1021, Roll 5, Frame 126; Testimony of and Concerning Irma Grese in “Excerpts from The Belsen Trial, Pt. 5 of 5: The Trial of Adolf Eichmann, Session 101 (Pt. 3 of 4), The Nizkor Project, www.nizkor.org”; Jamie McCarthy and Ken McVay, “The Meaning of Special Treatment, Pt. 1 of 3,” Deceit and Misrepresentation: The Techniques of Holocaust Denial, The Nizkor Project, www.nizkor.org; Raul Hilberg, Documents of Destruction: Germany and Jewry 1933-1945 (Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1971), pp. 219-223.

  10. Papers of Rudolf Martin Cheim, Joodsche Raad Voor Amsterdam, p. 28, YIVO RG804.

  11. Papers of Rudolf Martin Cheim, Joodsche Raad Voor Amsterdam, pp. 27-28, YIVO RG804; Memo and Transfer List, Ravensbruck Concentration Camp Labor Deployment Office to Flossenburg Concentration Camp Labor Deployment Office, September 1, 1944, D II NA RG242/338, T1021 Reel 17.

  12. Operation of D II, IMT, 5:980-992; sound recording, Heinrich Himmler’s Speech at Posen, October 4, 1943, NA RG238, PS 1919.

  13. Papers of Rudolf Martin Cheim, Joodsche Raad Voor Amsterdam, p. 27, YIVO RG804.

  14. Papers of Rudolf Martin Cheim, Joodsche Raad Voor Amsterdam, pp. 27-28, YIVO RG804.

  15. Papers of Rudolf Martin Cheim, Joodsche Raad Voor Amsterdam, p. 26, YIVO RG804.

  16. Thomas J. Watson, Jr., and Peter Petre, Father, Son & Co.: My Life at IBM and Beyond (New York: Bantam Books, 1990), pp. 29-30; CSDIC, “Secret Report: PW Intelligence Bulletin No. 2/57,” April 25, 1945, p. 4, NA RG226; “Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen: Confidential Report 242,” p. 8, submitted by Harold J. Carter, December 8, 1943, Department of Justice, War Division, Economic Warfare Section, NA RG60.

  II: THE IBM-HITLER INTERSECTION

  1. Edwin Black, The Transfer Agreement: The Dramatic Story of the Pact Between the Third Reich & Jewish Palestine (New York: Macmillan, 1984; Washington, DC: Dialog Press, 1999), pp. 3-7, 26; Letter, Thomas J. Watson to Dr. Hjalmar Schacht, August 18, 1937, IBM Files.

  2. Peter N. Stearns and John H. Hinshaw, eds., The ABC-CLIO World History Companion to the Industrial Revolution (Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 1996), p. 223.

  3. From V. Hollerith, “Biographical Sketch,” interviews with Madeline and George Hollerith, January 19, 1972, and May 18, 1970, cited in Geoffrey D. Austrian, Herman Hollerith: Forgotten Giant of Information Processing (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), p. 350.

  4. Emerson W. Pugh, Building IBM: Shaping an Industry and Its Technology (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1995), pp. 2-3; Robert Sobel, IBM: Colossus in Transition (New York: Truman Talley Books, 1981), p. 14; Austrian, p. 4; Saul Engelbourg, International Business Machines: A Business History (Arno Press, 1976), pp. 2-3, and author’s typescript.

  5. Sobel, p. 14.

  6. Sobel, p. 14.

  7. Sobel, p. 14; see Austrian, p. 15.

  8. Austrian, pp. 6, 22, 40-42; see Pugh, p. 11.

  9. Sobel, pp. 13-14; Pugh, pp. 1-3; 17; Austrian, pp. 82-83, 124-141.

  10. Pugh, pp. 12-13.

  11. Austrian, pp. 58, 69.

  12. Austrian, pp. 88, 170-171, 221; Sobel, pp. 17, 20; Pugh, pp. 16, 17; see Austrian, pp. 120-121.

  13. Austrian, pp. 206-207.

  14. Austrian, pp. 207-208, 236-237.

  15. Austrian, pp. 80, 103, 122.

  16. Austrian, p. 78.

  17. Austrian, pp. 146-149; Encyclopaedia Judaica, s.v. “Russian brutal regime,” pp. 444-450.

  18. Austrian, p. 97.

  19. Austrian, p. 225.

  20. Austrian, p. 225.

  21. Austrian, p. 225.

  22. Austrian, pp. 234-237, 260-261, 277, 279.

  23. Austrian, pp. 274-275.

  24. Austrian, pp. 199-202, 273-274, 288-305.

  25. Austrian, pp. 306-307.

  26. Austrian, pp. 327-328; W. Heidinger, “Declaration to the IBM Advisory Panel,” June 18, 1943, IBM Files.

  27. Sobel, pp. 4-5, 11-12; see Charles R. Flint, Memories of an Active Life (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1923).

  28. Sobel, pp. 4-5; Flint, 85-88, 180-184, 196-225, 247-249; see Thomas Graham Belden and Marva Robins Belden, The Lengthening Shadow: The Life of Thomas J. Watson (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1962), p. 90; also see Robert Wistrich, Who’s Who in Nazi Germany (New York: Macmillan, 1982).

  29. Sobel, p. 5.

  30. Austrian, p. 308; see Sobel, p. 5.

  31. Sobel, pp. 10-12; see Pugh, p. 24; also see Austrian, p. 312.

  32. Sobel, pp. 10-12; see Pugh, pp. 24-26.

  33. Pugh, p. 27; Sobel, pp. 10-12; Austrian, pp. 312-313.

  34.
Austrian, p. 323.

  35. Austrian, pp. 323-324.

  36. Belden and Belden, pp. 6-7.

  37. Belden and Belden, p. 4.

  38. Belden and Belden, p. 5.

  39. Belden and Belden, pp. 6-11.

  40. William Rodgers, Think: A Biography of the Watsons and IBM (New York: Stein and Day, 1969), p. 27.

  41. Rodgers, pp. 16, 29-34.

  42. Rodgers, pp. 31-33; Belden and Belden, p. 22.

  43. Rodgers, pp. 33-35.

  44. Rodgers, pp. 33-35; Belden and Belden, p. 27.

  45. Rodgers, p. 40; see Thomas J. Watson, Jr., and Peter Petre, Father, Son & Co.: My Life at IBM and Beyond (New York: Bantam Books, 1990), p. 141.

  46. Rodgers, pp. 40-41.

  47. Rodgers, pp. 40-41.

  48. Rodgers, pp. 41-43.

  49. Rodgers, p. 42.

  50. Rodgers, p. 42.

  51. Rodgers, pp. 42-43.

  52. Rodgers, pp. 48, 57.

  53. Rodgers, pp. 48, 52.

  54. Rodgers, pp. 53-55.

  55. Rodgers, p. 60.

  56. Rodgers, pp. 62-63; see Sobel, p. 42; also see Belden and Belden, pp. 76-80.

  57. Rodgers, pp. 63-65; Belden and Belden, pp. 76-80; Sobel, p. 42.

  58. Rodgers, pp. 63-64; Sobel, pp. 42-43; Watson, Jr., and Petre, pp. 141-142.