IBM During WWII

In the early 1930’s, Hitler came to IBM with a problem pertaining to quarantining the Jews in Germany.  Hitler had heard of the tabulating machines that IBM had created and knew of their functions. IBM would soon focus on government contracts with Nazi Germany.  IBM would control their subsidiaries through a main subsidiary in Switzerland. By 1934, the Nazis were well on their way to helping IBM get the information that they needed because various government bureaus began to compile card catalogs identifying political and racial enemies of the Nazi regime like Freemasons, Jews, Sinti, Roma (Gypsies), and "genetically diseased" persons. In 1935, racism against the Jews became increasingly prominent with the enactment of the Nuremberg Laws.

With the start of WWII in 1939, IBM still kept their subsidiaries in Germany to gain more profit. Between 1933 and 1940, IBM created subsidiaries to help the Nazis in their task of eliminating the Jews and helping the Nazis on their way to power in the world.  On October 12, 1939, the deportation of Austrian Jews to Poland begins. According to Dr. Edwin Black, the initial talks between IBM and Hitler were what we would call the 6 phases to the Jews persecution. These are the 6 phases involved for capturing and persicuting a Jew: identification, expulsion, ghettoization, deportation, extermination, and taking the Jews assets.

Many historians wonder why the United States did not intervene with the business of IBM until 1941 when the United States entered the war. Mrs. Carolyn Draper, a former history teacher of the Holocaust at J.B. Young School in Davenport, Iowa, stated that if the United States intervened earlier than 1941, the Holocaust would not have been so brutal and tragic. The Nazis had some major assistance from other U.S. companies, such as General Motors, Chase Bank, and Citibank. IBM was different because they owned the punch card business, it was a monopoly and IBM took advantage of that by leasing the machines to the concentration camps. Banks and insurance companies ran off the IBM punch card system, so that the banks could take thier assests and the insurance companies could remove thier policy from the systm. Also, The Night of Broken Glass was solely organized by IBM because the Jews had to be accounted for before hand and only IBM's machines were capable of accomplishing that task.

Notes:

Thomas J. Watson, president of IBM, was often shown with in pictures working with Hitler. According to Dr. Edwin Black, Watson had instituional Anti-Semitisism, but he was not a Nazi. Watson's concern was economic gain not Anti- Semitisism.

Watson felt sympathetic to Germany after WWI

His company was safe in Germany (CTR company) (renamed IBM in 1924)

Dr. Edwin Black book here.

Notes:

Railroad deportation- Ibm's role in specific camps- Trace ancestory- The Wansee Meeting- Watson Anti-semtic-