The Holocaust, IBM and Israel

What you need to believe to be a Republican:

#3 - Trade with Cuba is wrong because Cuba is a communist country. Trade with China and Vietnam, however, is vital to a spirit of international harmony.


Edwin Black's book, IBM and the Holocaust, is one of the most important books published in the last 60 years. When it first fell into my hands, I had no idea what to expect. Like many Americans, I had always thought of IBM as "Big Blue" -- a blue-chip, first-rate company, and a model of American ingenuity and enterprise.

Oh, I had heard stories of IBM's rigidity in terms of dress; that male employees were required to wear white shirts with ties and blue suits. I had heard that the boss expected a 24/7 commitment, that employees were expected to go the extra mile, to be "rah-rah," and to never, ever disparage the firm.

But that's not what Black's book is about. I was not prepared for what this book is about - here's what it's about:

"It tells the story of IBM's conscious involvement--directly and through its subsidiaries--in the Holocaust, as well as its involvement in the Nazi war machine that murdered millions of others throughout Europe."

This was news to me, but evidently it is also "old" news. IBM's collusion with the Nazis has been known for years, but has received little media attention. (Why that is could be another story!)

This book rectifies that situation and here's how it came about.

Edwin Black, whose grandparents were murdered by the Nazis and whose parents are Holocaust survivors, tells of a visit to the United States Holocaust Museum in 1993. Accompanied by his parents, he was stunned to be suddenly confronted, right in the middle of the first exhibit, by an IBM Hollerith D-11 card sorting machine. An IBM nameplate was "clearly affixed" to the machine's front panel.

Black says he stared at that machine for an hour before coming to the decision to learn more about IBM and the Holocaust, a decision that resulted in the book, IBM and the Holocaust.


I read the book several months ago, but what brought it back to mind was an article that came my way recently that listed various "staunch supporters of Israel." A number of well-known American companies and their owners/executives were listed. On page four, I encountered the name, IBM.

IBM, I read, "invests heavily in Israel. IBM employs 1700 people in Israel. IBM was one of three companies that was lauded at the America-Israel Friendship League Partners for Democracy Awards dinner in 2001.

"In May of 2002, IBM received the 'Ambassador's Award' from the Israel-America Chamber of Commerce. This award was in recognition of IBM's 'outstanding contribution to the development of the Israeli high-tech industry ...'"

IBM first began operating in Israel in 1949 and "was the first large American company with a wholly owned subsidiary in Israel, introducing computers to the country."

Sheesh! You'd think IBM should get a medal. [IBM's boss did get a medal, as we shall see!]

These accolades, may, in context, be well-deserved. But there is a history to IBM, a history that casts a long, murderous shadow on that firm's reputation. To my knowledge, IBM has yet to be honest and forthcoming about its collusion with Adolf Hitler.


When Hitler came to power, one goal of the Nazis was to identify and destroy all 600,000 members of the German Jewish community. It would be a massive undertaking and what the Nazis needed in 1933 was a computer, which they didn't have.

Another goal of the Reich was to "mount a systematic campaign of economic disenfranchisement and later begin the massive movement of European Jews out of their homes and into ghettos." This was another gigantic task which cried for a computer.

The Final Solution also desperately needed a computer, as it involved moving thousands of Jews from ghettos to death camps along various railroad lines and along precise time lines. Here again a computer was needed.

Black says computers did not exist in 1933 -

But, the IBM punch card and card sorting system -- "a precursor to the computer" did!

IBM became Hitler's ally in achieving those three goals! "IBM, primarily through its German subsidiary, made Hitler's progam of Jewish destruction a technologic mission the company pursued with chilling success." [My emphasis]

Although much of the actual work was done by IBM Germany, known originally as Dehomag, IBM New York always understood--from the outset in 1933--that it was courting and doing business with the upper echelon of the Nazi Party.

And no one knew more or was more involved in the day to day operations of all of IBM's ventures than its head honcho, Thomas J. Watson.

In June 1937, the International Chamber of Commerce Congress (ICC), which Watson headed, met in Germany. On June 28 of that year, Watson met with Hitler in the Reich Chancellery. What the two discussed, no one knows, but later Watson told the New York Times, "There will be no war. No country wants war, no country can afford it."

Hitler was so taken with Watson (and vice versa) and so grateful for IBM's assistance in their anti-Jewish program, that der Fuhrer decorated Watson with a special medal. The event, staged by Goebbels, with a Venetian Nights theme, took place at Friedrich Wilhelm III's 18th century castle on Peacock Island.

As the 3,000 guests arrived they were met by Berlin schoolgirls wearing white blouses over white silk breeches and white leather slippers. They waved a white fairy's wand and bowed as the dignitaries approached.

It was a night for drinking and Nazi speeches and singing. The group sang the "Horst Wessel Song," and the German national anthem.

Black writes that the "crowning moment [was] the decoration of Watson." As the medal was bestowed upon him, newsreel cameras rolled. The medal itself had "The eight-pointed gold-framed cross of white enamel embedded with German eagles and Nazi emblems dangled about the neck from a broad red, black, and white ribbon in tandem with a second six-pointed star worn over the left breast ... When wearing it, he [Watson] was draped by two swastikas, one to the right and one to the left."

Watson loved it!

To be fair, we should note that a few years later as the Nazi atrocities became more widely publicized, and as the U.S. government clamped down on companies trading with the enemy, Watson did return the medal. Not surprisingly, Hitler was irate, and the German elite took this as a horrible slap in the face.

That did not, however, stop either side from continuing their perverse relationship dedicated to facilitating the killing of Jews by the Nazis and money-making by Watson and IBM.

At no time during the war did IBM and/or Watson give up control of IBM's collusion with the Third Reich. They just ran it through intermediaries.

IBM remained the major facilitator of the Final Solution, providing the means by which the Nazis identified the Jews, first in Germany, and then in the rest of Europe; the means by which the Nazis identified the wealth of the Jews in order to confiscate it; and the means by which the Nazis where able to effectively and efficiently move Jews from a particular point of origin to one of the death camps.

Watson's long gone, of course. But, as mentioned above, IBM and its executives have yet to acknowledge the depth of their duplicity, the vastness of their treason, the guilt of their involvement in genocide. IBM and its executives continue to claim they have little knowledge of the war years, or the files have disappeared, or ...


It appears that Watson did not personally "hate" Jews as Jews. But he had no love or feeling for them, either. He just didn't give a damn what happened to them so long as IBM made money!

When it involved IBM and profit-taking, Watson was amoral. For Watson, it was alway about money, all the time. Most of the time, he personally knew exactly how much money was involved, where it came from and how much was being spent; down to the dime!

The bottom line was his bottom line, and if 6 million Jews and millions of others were tortured and killed ... well, it was just business.


Back to Israel today. Perhaps IBM became involved in Israel in 1949, shortly after Israel gained independence, because of a guilty conscience. I doubt that, however. Corporations don't have consciences, and in the case of IBM, neither did its executives.

So there are questions: Why has IBM made such an investment in Israel? Why does IBM continue to operate in Israel.

From what I know about IBM, it isn't because they give a damn about Israel or its people. With IBM you can be sure the motivation is exactly the same as it was in 1933 when it went into business with Adolf Hitler: Money! That, for IBM, is still the bottom line.

You might say IBM would go into business with the Devil if it meant a profit. Actually, that's exactly what IBM did!