IBM After WWII

 By 1944, the German army had become a desperate situation. Two of the highest German military officials attempted suicide. There was also an assassination attempt of Hitler, however, he escaped the bomb explosion with only minor injuries. The war seemed to be over by early 1945, but Hitler insisted that the Nazis should fight to the death. In April 1945, when the final collapse of the Germans was occurring, Hitler demoted anyone who tried to negotiate with the allies and he remained in Berlin when the Russians came in to invade. On April 30th, 1945, Hitler and his mistress, Eva Braun, committed suicide together in a bunker.

After the Holocaust, IBM had profits that were higher than the average company in the U.S.. Many have argued that IBM used the Nazi political regime to lease their machines to make an extremely high profit. The revenue that IBM had after the war gave IBM a bad image, so during the Nuremberg trials, IBM leased machines to the court.

But that does not cover up the guilt that IBM had put on themselves. They had supplied machines to one of the most brutal regimes in history and to top that, they made so much money in the process; it would set up IBM for many years after the Holocaust. According to Edwin Blacks book, "The moral dilemma did not exist for IBM, it was not even debated if they should aid Hitler. IBM saw Hitler as a very important trading ally."

In 2001, five Holocaust survivors sued IBM for it's role in the extermination of the Jews. IBM was never subject to punishment by the U.S. government because IBM stated they had no information about the subject or time period. There were many lawsuits against IBM and they were found innocent every time because IBM claimed they did not have any records from their German subsidiary. IBM also paid off some historians that could have leaked information about the Holocaust.

In the book Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, it is discussed whether the ordinary German citizens were willing to kill these Jews or that they were just doing their job. It is highly debated which position IBM was in. IBM's President, Thomas Watson, was certainly not a Nazis, but he had institutional anti-seitism and he always did the thing that would make his company the most money; that was the most important thing to Watson. There was a letter sent to IBM in 1941 describing the uses of their machines from their German subsidiary. There was also a contract written in 1942 that was from the Third Reich that was directed to IBM headquarters in New York. The evidence proves that IBM knew about the events occurring in Germany, it just hasn't been pieced together.