More than just the strategic need to evacuate the equipment to safer ground, Hitler’s Holleriths constituted damning evidence. Hence, when concentration camps were abandoned, the machines were moved and files destroyed to obliterate the record of war crimes. In many cases, Hollerith devices from various Reich sites were not redeployed, but simply hidden to keep them from Allied confiscation. However, as the Allies closed in on Berlin, military intelligence tracked many of the machines.6
A major MB punching operation of almost 100 Hollerith machines at its Wendisch-Reitz office was shifted in part to Otto’s Hotel, while its tabulators were installed at a nearby castle, and the remaining devices were shipped by rail to Neudientendorf for reassembly in the basement of the Riesbeck brewery. Allied forces arrived at the brewery before the machines could be activated. Machines from Krakow and Posen were also moved to sites in Neudietendorf. Tabulators and sorters in Koenigsberg were thought to have been loaded onto a boat that escaped before Allied armies arrived. Holleriths at Hannover were moved to Elze. Nuremberg machines were relocated to Brauhaus Street in Ansbach. Tabulator experts at Kassel shipped their gear to Oberaula, but first removed several small components, rendering them inoperative if Allied forces discovered the systems.7
With both sides trying to protect the Holleriths, the evidence on exactly where and how thousands of machines were used was all but obscured. This was particularly the case in concentration camps where the Hollerith Departments were generally dismantled before liberators arrived, even if some of the cards, decoding keys, and telltale Hollerith transfer paper were left behind.8
Thus, almost as soon as Germany capitulated, IBM could begin the proc ess of recovering its valuable equipment from frequently innocuous sites.
IBM’s money was protected with equal fervor. During the war, the Reich needed IBM subsidiaries in Nazi Europe to continue operating in a reliable, profitable mode. At first, the Reich appointed a temporary enemy property custodian, Dr. Kottgen. He simply re-appointed IBM’s most trusted managers in virtually all the territories.9
By 1943, however, the Reich Economics Ministry had designated Hermann B. Fellinger as custodian over Dehomag. Fellinger was one of Germany’s most reliable and commercially adept Kommissars. In WWI, he had served as the chief Kommissar overseeing all other custodians of enemy property. In France, where Westerholt officiated as preliminary custodian at CEC, Fellinger was empowered to supersede and ultimately replace him. Ultimately, Fellinger’s authority extended not only to Dehomag, but also to IBM companies in Norway, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and France. Fellinger also coordinated closely with a second custodian, H. Garbrecht, who oversaw the IBM operating units in Belgium and Holland, and with Rome’s appointed official at Watson Italiana. Real estate attorney Oskar Mohring was named custodian for IBM’s property and other commercial interests in Nazi Europe.10
On assuming his position, Fellinger immediately re-designated IBM’s best managers to keep the subsidiaries productive and profitable. He only excised one IBM personality: Dehomag Chairman Willy Heidinger. A four-man Advisory Committee, including Veesenmayer, quickly replaced Dehomag’s Board of Directors. That outraged the combative Heidinger who saw his power suddenly neutralized. On June 18, 1943, Heidinger wrote a long, bitter defense of his involvement with the company, going back to its inception in 1910. His diatribe railed that Watson’s interference had been the cause of all problems. Dehomag was German not American, he argued, and should not be administered for IBM’s benefit, but instead completely Aryanized.11
“Contrary to what has on occasion been alleged,” protested Heidinger, “it was, therefore, not a case of us Germans participating in an American enterprise, but rather of Americans participating in a German enterprise that I created… I have been blamed for many other things, in an unfounded and partly contradictory manner. Among other things, I was told I was merely a figurehead for the Americans; on the other hand, it was not very nice of me to act so aggressively towards the Americans now that I had waxed rich because of them. The opposite is true: It is not a case of my having become wealthy because of the Americans, but rather of the Americans having become wealthy because of me.”12
Further undercutting him, Fellinger ruled that the company was no longer obligated to re-purchase Heidinger’s stock. Heidinger would have undoubtedly pressed claims against Fellinger and done his utmost to regain control of Dehomag. But Heidinger’s battle came to an end several months after his angry apologia to Fellinger. Deteriorating health eventually won out over the indomitable Dehomag founder. In 1944, Heidinger died of natural causes.13
With Heidinger out of the way, Fellinger was free to operate Dehomag and its sphere of influence as he saw fit. In that vein, he was far more than just an inert oversight officer. Fellinger functioned with as much commercial zeal and dedication to the IBM enterprise as any senior executive Watson could have personally selected. It was exactly as Watson had envisioned. Germany’s custodian, Fellinger, was the perfect solution to the Dehomag revolt and the predicament of a business alliance with the Third Reich while America was fighting a war with Germany.
In Norway, Fellinger received regular progress reports from Watson Norsk’s longtime manager, Jens Tellefson. Fellinger limited his involvement to “smoothing his [Tellefson’s] path with [various Reich] departments, and especially the German occupation authorities.” When machines and parts could no longer be imported directly from New York, Fellinger arranged for imports from Watson Italiana and Dehomag. Tellefson purchased the Italian and German machines not in the Norwegian subsidiary’s name, but in the name of IBM NY to preserve the American parent company’s claim to the property being used in occupied Norway. When the Norwegian company ran low on card stock, Fellinger also arranged for supplies through Dehomag’s paper vendors.14
At one point, Norwegian saboteurs used explosives to destroy Watson Norsk’s offices. They hoped to disrupt the company’s in-house servicing of the Nazi labor office, which coordinated both conscripted and slave workers. Anticipating such an attack, Tellefson had arranged for Nazi records to be moved off-site daily. Nonetheless, most of the IBM machines serving the labor office were crippled in the bomb attack. So Fellinger approved relocating the IBM office to a more secure neighborhood with replacement machinery. This allowed IBM’s lucrative service to continue. In Norway, annual revenues doubled from 161,000 crowns in 1940 to 334,000 crowns in 1943, and declined only slightly in 1944, just months before Norway was liberated in 1945. Fellinger attributed Watson Norsk’s excellent performance to “wartime conditions.”15
In dismantled Czechoslovakia, Fellinger allowed Watson’s handpicked director, Emil Kuczek, to remain in command. Fellinger was pleased that “Kuczek has conducted the business with great care and expert knowledge… acting conscientiously in the interest of that company.” He remembered that Kuczek “always acted in complete harmony with myself.” The Czech subsidiary’s card printing capacity was doubled thanks to a transfer of printing presses and paper cutters from Dehomag. In turn, the Czech subsidiary filled Dehomag’s punch card orders. A number of Czech machines were assigned to “German railways in the East.” Kuczek accepted all machine rental payments, but did not provide any receipts. He deposited the money in IBM’s account at Prague Kreditbank. IBM Geneva in turn notified Kreditbank that Kuczek was permitted to freely spend up to 20 percent of the deposits to pay for ordinary subsidiary operations, such as salaries and rent.16 In this way, Czech operations were routinely funded without any written instructions from IBM NY, and service rendered with a minimal paper trail.