Hands reverently clasped either behind their backs or across their belt buckles, shoulders and arms touching in fellowship, the assemblage stood in awe of this day, the day Germany would unveil its own factory producing Hollerith machines. The President of the Prussian Statistical Office, Dr. Hopker, delivered brief remarks using the euphemisms and crystal clear ambiguities of the day. “[T]he irresistible force of the National Socialist government… demands the [census] results faster than ever before,” he declared, adding, “German statistics understands this impatience.” He then explained exactly how the punch card process worked, distilling the anonymous German masses into specific names organized by race and religion, as well as numerous other characteristics.26
Accompanied by a dense din in adjacent halls that clicked and whirred like locusts swarming a field, Heidinger stepped to the front to speak. With the passion of a die-hard ideologist simultaneously presenting an omnipotent gift to the nation and fulfilling a life-long personal dream, he spoke of the demographic surgery the German population required.
“The physician examines the human body and determines whether… all organs are working to the benefit of the entire organism,” asserted Heidinger to a crowd of company employees and Nazi officials. “We [Dehomag] are very much like the physician, in that we dissect, cell by cell, the German cultural body. We report every individual characteristic… on a little card. These are not dead cards, quite to the contrary, they prove later on that they come to life when the cards are sorted at a rate of 25,000 per hour according to certain characteristics. These characteristics are grouped like the organs of our cultural body, and they will be calculated and determined with the help of our tabulating machine.27
“We are proud that we may assist in such a task, a task that provides our nation’s Physician [Adolf Hitler] with the material he needs for his examinations. Our Physician can then determine whether the calculated values are in harmony with the health of our people. It also means that if such is not the case, our Physician can take corrective procedures to correct the sick circumstances…. Our characteristics are deeply rooted in our race. Therefore, we must cherish them like a holy shrine, which we will—and must—keep pure. We have the deepest trust in our Physician and will follow his instructions in blind faith, because we know that he will lead our people to a great future. Hail to our German people and der Fuhrer! “28
The entire group then filed out of the massive building and motored to IBM’s new factory in the quiet Berlin section of Lichterfelde to attend the official opening. At 10:30, Dehomag employees stopped their work to gather for the great event. Tall trees along the perimeter were still nearly barren from the Berlin winter. The swastika-bedecked square in front of the four-story factory complex was already jammed with hundreds of neighborhood onlookers and well wishers.29
Just before noon, two columns of Storm Troopers took up positions along either side of the walkway leading to Dehomag’s front door. A band from the SA’s 9th Regiment played Nazi victory songs. Finally, the NSDAP hierarchy arrived.30
Dehomag had invited Nazi higher-ups representing the organizations most important to the future of IBM’s partnership with the Third Reich. From the German Labor Front came Rudolf Schmeer, a last-minute stand-in for Dr. Robert Ley, leader of the organization. The German Labor Front was the militant coalition responsible for mobilizing unemployed Nazi millions into both newly created jobs and vacated Jewish positions. The Front also inducted Germans into regimented squads that functioned as veritable military units. So important was Dr. Ley and his German Labor Front that the entire Lichterfelde factory opening was delayed two days because he took ill. Only when it became clear he would not recover for days was the event suddenly rescheduled with Schmeer, accompanied by an entourage of potentates, standing in.31
At Schmeer’s side was A. Gorlitzer representing the SA, the rough and ready Storm Troopers, the violent edge of Hitler’s forces. Gorlitzer was a powerful Nazi. When Goebbels became Propaganda Minister, Gorlitzer took his place in the Storm Trooper organization. Now, the presence of Gorlitzer, in gleaming, black leather boots and fighting uniform, would testify to the importance of Dehomag in Hitler’s future plans.32
As the invited Nazi officials paraded through echelons of honor guard, the Brown Shirts pumped their arms rigidly diagonal. Schmeer, Gorlitzer, and the other leaders returned the disciplined Hitler salute with a casual, almost cocky bent-elbowed gesture, their open palms barely wafting over their shoulder.33
Bouquets decorated Dehomag’s reception hall. One large swastika emblem dominated the front of the podium, and an even larger swastika flag hung across the wall. Music inside was provided by an NSDAP men’s choir. To record the event, a tall, circular microphone stood nearby.34
The company’s most important users were there as well. Heidinger’s guest list included the directors of the Reichsbank and other financial institutions, the Police, Post Office, Ministry of Defense, Reich Statistical Office, and an executive contingent from the Reichsbahn, that is, German Railway.35
The future was in the cards—a future of names, of police files and concentration camps, of bank accounts and asset transfers, of war offices and weapons production, of endless statistical campaigns and registrations, and of trains. So many trains. The men and organizations assembled would help shape that future in ways people were only beginning to imagine.
Representing Watson at the event was his personal representative, Walter Jones. Jones was the Paris-based manager of all European operations and a man who would one day become chairman of IBM Canada.36
Framed by swastikas front and rear, a clearly impressed Jones was the first to speak. He proclaimed in German, “It is an outstanding honor and privilege for me to be with you and to represent Mr. Thomas J. Watson, president of International Business Machines, on the occasion of the formal opening of this magnificent factory… the new and permanent home of Dehomag.”37
Repeatedly using Nazi buzzwords for economic recovery, Jones made clear that Mr. Watson agreed to the new construction “because he realized your organization had outgrown the facilities… [and] the time was propitious… as it would give employment to many idle workmen and thus help… the unemployed.” Peppering Watson’s name and imprimatur throughout his address, Jones praised, “the noble work undertaken by your government in its aim to give work to every German citizen.”38
When Heidinger came to the front, nattily dressed with a small hand-kerchief peeking from his suit jacket pocket, the man was clearly emotional. “I feel it almost a sacred action, if in this hour I consecrate this place of our mother earth,” he began. Reviewing Dehomag’s turbulent history, he described how the tiny company had persevered despite a lack of financing, the Great War, and the suffocating post-War inflation.39
Although at that very time, Heidinger was battling Watson over the appointment of Hummel, in this moment of Nazi fulfillment, Heidinger was effusive. Recalling IBM’s acquisition of Dehomag, he recast the story not as an acrimonious takeover but as a financial rescue by a benevolent friend of the German people. “I express our deepest appreciation and our thanks for the noblesse not to be surpassed, proved by our creditor… International Business Machines Corporation under the management of their president, Thomas J. Watson, in our condition of distress…. [IBM] could have been in a position to take over our entire firm by… enforcing their claim for bankruptcy… but [instead] purchased a share in our company.”40