During the protracted delays, millions of punch cards would be hurriedly shipped by IBM’s neutral country subsidiaries to enemy countries or blacklisted customers.89 At IBM, time was more than money. Time was punch cards. Once a million cards were punched, they could never be unpunched.
At the vortex of every economic masque in Switzerland was Werner Lier, IBM’s European Manager in Geneva until Germany surrendered. As such, he was the company’s top officer in Europe involved with virtually every transaction in every country throughout the war.90 Yet even IBM’s own review at the time concluded that Lier’s dates, declarations, and documentation amounted to a prolonged and elaborate series of charades.
For instance, in late March 1942, Lier negotiated contracts with two blacklisted Swiss munitions companies. Yet on April 27, 1942, Lier sent a cable to IBM NY pretending that the two newly negotiated contracts were actually signed before the war, and then openly asking New York to petition the U.S. government for a special exemption: “U.S. Commercial Attache Bern requests we cancel contracts,” cabled Lier. “Can you intervene to maintain installations on basis contracts signed before war.”91 But IBM’s own internal review later confirmed, “This is a definitely misleading statement because, apart from the two contracts here under consideration, three other contracts had been signed by the customer after the United States had entered into the war… the machines were supplied and billed by Geneva, and payment accepted. Mr. Lier made thereby a deliberately misleading statement…. This deception is the more serious since none of the contracts signed before the war existed any longer.”92
IBM also found a pattern of falsified dates. For instance, Lier sent IBM NY a cable July 21, 1942, asserting that a Type 954 Hollerith was installed at a blacklisted customer site in Switzerland on December 31, 1941. However, IBM’s own fraud review, citing its Installation Report No. 22, proved the machine was actually installed on March 31, 1942, with rent beginning in April 1942.93
Foot-dragging, false logs, and contrived chronologies were commonplace at IBM Geneva. For example, Lier had created an extensive log to demonstrate how he regularly complied with American consular officials in Bern who demanded IBM cease business with blacklisted companies. Eventually, IBM had to admit in a letter: “Thus it has taken Mr. Lier thirteen days to inform Mr. Herzog [an IBM sales manager] that two of his customers appeared on the ‘Black List,’ when he [Lier] could have informed Mr. Herzog by telephone on the day he was in possession of this information—namely on March 25 [1942].94 In consequence,” the company letter continued, “[American Commercial Attache Daniel] Reagan had pierced the mystery surrounding this case and [refused]… to accept Mr. Lier’s… chronological report, inasmuch as he accuses him of having had these contracts five days after he [Lier] knew that these customers were on the Black List.”95
On occasion, even IBM NY could no longer unravel the ruses its key managers were weaving. IBM’s own internal review of one case confessed that after June 1942, “we lose track of the case as the correspondence relating thereto was withdrawn from the files.”96
Despite IBM’s own internal reviews summarizing a pattern of improprieties, Watson allowed Lier to continue at his pivotal post.
Watson himself set the stage for IBM Europe’s wartime conduct. In October 1941, he circulated instructions to all subsidiaries: “In view of world conditions we cannot participate in the affairs of our companies in various countries as we did in normal times. Therefore you are advised that you will have to make your own decisions and not call on us for any advice or assistance until further notice.”97 That instruction never asked IBM executives to stop trading with the Hitler regime, or place a halt on sales to the camps, the war machine, or any German occupying authority. Watson only asked his companies to stop informing the New York office about their activities.
Despite the illusion of non-involvement, IBM NY continued to play a central role in the day-to-day operations of its subsidiaries. Company subsidiaries regularly traded with Axis-linked blacklisted companies in neutral countries, and even directly with Germany and Italy.98 It was business as usual throughout the war.
As a Swiss national, Lier freely traveled to and from Germany, occupied territories, and neutral countries micro-managing company affairs for Watson.99
Six months after Watson declared IBM Headquarters to be cut off from its overseas units, Lier himself defined IBM Geneva’s role not as an autonomous, detached office—but as a nexus, which simply implemented the business decisions made by IBM NY. On April 29, 1942, Lier outlined for the American Consul in Geneva exactly how IBM Geneva operated. “You will readily understand,” explained Lier, “that this office is a clearing office between the local organizations in the various countries and the New York Headquarters.” Lier added that IBM NY made all the decisions. His function was simply to monitor the business and keep the records. “The European Headquarters in Geneva,” he explained, “are, in a way, a representative of the World Headquarters in New York, whose job it is to manage and control European affairs…. In short, the functions of the Geneva Office are purely administrative.”100
Lier emphasized, “When the local offices require machines or material from our factories in the United States, they pass the order to the Geneva Office which, in turn, transmits it to the New York Headquarters for handling and supplying the machines direct to the local office.”101
Perhaps IBM’s business philosophy was best expressed by an executive of Belge Watson in an August 1939 letter to senior officers of IBM NY. The letter detailed the company’s growing involvement in Japan’s aircraft industry. The IBM Brussels executive declared: “It is none of our business to judge the reasons why an American corporation should or would help a foreign Government, and consequently Mr. Decker and myself have left these considerations entirely out of our line of thought…. we are, as IBM men, interested in the technical side of the application of our machines.”102
But as European territory was liberated in late 1944 and early 1945, re-established national authorities began to hold commercial collaborators responsible. French arrests of IBM people in Paris—despite their ultimate release—were characteristic of the liberation fervor gripping Europe. Lier him self had been the center of many rumors. One story suggested that he had transported Dehomag money to Vichy in harrowing nighttime runs across occupied France.103 Another story hinted that Lier was wanted by the post-War authorities even in Switzerland for bending the financial statutes.104
All the facts surrounding IBM’s cloudy dealings in Geneva will probably never come to light, but this much became clear at the time: once the war ended, Lier needed to disappear from Geneva in a hurry. Lier had no choice. He could only escape by traveling through France. So at the end of 1944, just after French intelligence arrested CEC managers, Lier tried to arrange his immediate departure from Europe by applying for a French travel visa at the French Consulate in Geneva.105 But on January 3, the French Foreign Ministry instructed the French Consulate to deny Lier’s visa request, thus keeping him where he was. The French Consulate took its time informing Lier, and only confirmed the denial on January 12, 1945.106
Moreover, even if Lier could leave Switzerland, commercial officers at the American Legation in Bern were reluctant to grant him a temporary visa to enter the United States on the grounds his entry might be “detrimental to the public safety.” They expressed themselves in an exchange of correspondence on January 16. But several days later, senior diplomats intervened. American Consul Paul Squire was told in a letter by legation officer J. Klahr Huddle. “Supplementing my letter,” wrote Huddle, “I now have to inform you that the files in the case of Werner C. Lier have been carefully examined by the interested officers of this Legation. After careful consideration of the case, it is our considered opinion that Mr. Lier’s entry into the United States on a temporary visitor’s visa would not prove ‘detrimental to the public safety,’ and it is believed that in your discretion you may act accordingly with respect to Mr. Lier’s application for a visa.”107