XIV. THE SPOILS OF GENOCIDE, I
NO ONE WILL EVER KNOW EXACTLY HOW MANY IBM MACHINES clattered in which ghetto zone, train depot, or concentration camp. Nor will anyone prove exactly what IBM officials in Europe or New York understood about their location or use. Machines were often moved—with or without IBM’s knowledge—from the officially listed commercial or governmental client to a deadly Nazi installation in another country, and then eventually transferred back again.1
Most importantly, it did not matter whether IBM did or did not know exactly which machine was used at which death camp. All that mattered was that the money would be waiting—once the smoke cleared.
In fact, a pattern emerged throughout war-ravaged Europe. Before America entered the war, IBM NY and its subsidiaries worked directly with Germany or Italy, or its occupying forces. As part of the strategic alliance, it also worked with German sympathizers and allies in countries such as Romania, Yugoslavia, and Hungary.2 Watson would even order new subsidiaries established in conquered territories in cadence with Nazi invasions.3 Even after America declared war, IBM offices worldwide would openly transact with these clients, or with other subsidiaries, until the moment General Ruling 11 was triggered for that particular territory. As the war in Europe expanded, General Ruling 11 jurisdiction was extended as well until all of Nazi-dominated Europe was proscribed.4 Once U.S. law prohibited transactions, IBM NY’s apparent direct management of its European operations seemed to end. But, in truth, executives in New York could still monitor events and exercise authority in Europe through neutral country subsidiaries. These overseas units always remained under the parent company’s control. Moreover, special bureaucratic exemptions were regularly sought by IBM NY, or its subsidiaries, to continue or expand business dealings throughout occupied Europe.5 Official American demands that business be curtailed were often ignored.6
Once the United States entered the war, Axis custodians would be appointed as titular directors of subsidiaries in occupied territory. But these enemy custodians never looted the IBM divisions. Rather, they zealously protected the assets, extended productivity, and increased profits. Existing IBM executives were kept in place as day-to-day managers and, in some instances, even appointed deputy enemy custodians. In France, for example, although SS Officer Heinz Westerholt was appointed enemy custodian of CEC, he, in turn, appointed Dehomag’s Oskar Hoermann as deputy custodian. CEC’s Roger Virgile continued as managing director to keep the company profitable and productive. In Belgium, Nazi custodian H. Garbrecht remained aloof, allowing IBM managers Louis Bosman and G. Walter Galland to remain in place and virtually in command. In Germany, Dehomag’s board of directors was superseded by custodian Hermann Fellinger. Fellinger replaced Heidinger, and then insisted that Rottke, Hummel, and all the other managers in Dehomag’s twenty offices continue producing record profits.7 Whether overseen by Nazi executives or Watson’s own, IBM Europe thrived.
In the later war years, as the Allies moved across the western and eastern fronts, various liberated or about-to-be liberated territories emerged as exempt from prohibited trading under General Ruling 11. Sometimes the applicable regulations changed on an almost daily basis. IBM NY or IBM Geneva would tenaciously check with American authorities for permission to communicate or transact with previously proscribed subsidiaries. When direct contact was not possible, American legations passed the messages as a courtesy.8
During IBM’s continuing wartime commerce, the world was always aware that the machinery of Nazi occupation was being wielded to exterminate as many Jews as possible as quickly as possible. After endless newspaper and newsreel reports, and once the Allies confirmed their own intelligence revelations in summer 1942, the conclusion became inescapable: Germany’s goal was nothing short of complete physical extermination of all European Jewry. On December 17, 1942, the Allies finally declared there would be “war crime” trials and punishment. The Allies warned that all who cooperated with Hitler’s genocide would be held responsible before the bar of international justice. In Parliament, members rose in awed silence as one MP rang out, “There are many today who… but for the grace of God… might have been in those ghettos, those concentration camps, those slaughterhouses.” The Allies’ joint declaration of war crimes for genocide was broadcast and published as the top news in more than twenty-three languages the world over.9
A New York Times article was headlined “Allies Describe Outrages on Jews,” and sub-headlined “Extermination Is Feared.” It led: “What is happening to the 5,000,000 Jews of German-held Europe, all of whom face extermination.” The Allied report emphasized calculated starvation, group gassing, mass shooting, ghetto street scenes “beyond imagination,” and intense deportation campaigns by railroad.10
IBM’s business was never about Nazism. It was never about anti-Semitism. It was always about the money. Before even one Jew was encased in a hard-coded Hollerith identity, it was only the money that mattered. And the money did accrue.
Millions in blocked bank accounts scattered across Europe were waiting for IBM, as well as its newly acquired real estate, numerous Hitler-era factories and presses, and thousands of Hollerith machines. Much of the money and plant expansion was funded by a fundamentally bankrupt Third Reich, which financed its rapacious operations by slave labor, massive plunder, and cost-effective genocide. Where did Hitler’s Germany get the money to pay for all the services, cards, and leases? Nazi gold and currency was fungible—whether carted away from banks in Prague or pried from the teeth of Jewish carcasses at Treblinka. The Reich could afford the best. And it purchased the best with the assets it stole.
Managing overseas branches and conducting commerce within the broken lines of changing wartime regulations was itself an intensive effort. Each IBM subsidiary in Europe spawned its own epic collection of bureaucratic correspondence, spanning months and even years. Life and death dramas became daily realities in Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Italy, and elsewhere as IBM employees and Hollerith technology intersected with the victors and vanquished of Nazi Europe.
World War II finally ended in Europe on May 8, 1945. Almost immediately, IBM rushed in to recover its machines and bank accounts from enemy territory. The wealth of stories could take many volumes to chronicle, but this much was clear: there was no realm where IBM would not trade, and none where they failed to collect—country by country.
ROMANIA’S ANTI-JEWISH campaign was in full force by fall 1940. Germany had already inspired a murderously anti-Semitic regime in Bucharest. Romanian strong man Marshal Ion Antonescu’s Fascist regime had replicated Reich anti-Semitic laws of professional ousters and property confiscation. Rapidly in 1940, Romania pauperized thousands of Jews in a highly publicized campaign. Soon forced Jewish labor decrees and sporadic pogroms across Romania were breeding the usual headlines.11
For example, in January 1941, squads of vicious Iron Guard militants rampaged through Bucharest brutally massacring scores of Jewish residents. Some 120 Jews were beaten, mercilessly bullwhipped and bludgeoned with metal rods. Some were made to drink from bloody basins. At the local slaughterhouse, several Jews were fiendishly dismembered.12