When a town became Jew-free, it became a publicized event. In Germany, the town administration or local Nazi groups would eagerly advertise the accomplishment. Foreign newspaper and radio broadcasts chronicling Nazi oppression frequently reported the development as well. Typical was an article in the New York Times, May 28, 1935, headlined “All Jews Quit Hersbruck.” The article reported, “A swastika flag has been hoisted over a house in Hersbruck, near Nuremberg, which has been the home of the last remaining Jewish resident in the district.”28
But Watson didn’t need to read about Aryanization in newspapers. He discovered it personally. In July 1935, Watson visited Berlin. That July, Nazi thugs ran wild in the streets of Berlin smashing the windows of fashionable Jewish stores. One of those department stores was owned by the Wertheims, family friends of the Watsons. The Watson family learned that to protect the store, Mr. Wertheim first transferred the property to his Aryan wife, but then ultimately decided to sell “for next to nothing” and escape to Sweden. On another visit to Berlin, the Watsons and other IBM executives were invited to an elegant reception at the Japanese embassy. While sipping tea in the garden, a German diplomat boasted that the exquisite home formerly belonged to a Jew who fled the country. Such new ownership of greatly discounted homes was now common in Berlin.29
By late 1935, however, the Nazis envisioned a more systematic and state-controlled process to expropriating Jewish property. Just after the enactment of the Nuremberg Laws, the Nazis began floating plans for a clearinghouse to gobble up all Jewish holdings for a pittance. This plan was no secret. It was widely promoted in Germany through the Party’s Economic Information Agency. And the news traveled abroad. A New York Times article on September 24, 1935, was headlined “Nazis Plan to Buy Out All Jewish Firms; Stress Bargains Resulting from the Boycott.” The article reported, “The plan calls for the purchase of Jewish firms by a central corporation, and their redistribution among ambitious Aryan businessmen. It is suggested that such businesses can be obtained cheaply…. The Nazi organ responsible for this ‘solution of the Jewish problem’ makes startling guesses as to what the prices would be. It says, ‘some fairly large Jewish firms can be purchased for 40,000 marks.’ Evidently… the Jews can be induced to feel a very pressing desire to sell.” The newspaper noted that under such conditions, Jews might then be faced either with the prospect of “emigration or semi-starvation.”30
As part of the drive to liquidate Jewish assets, Nazis began visiting Jewish homes and invalidating their passports. Now Jews could not even become refugees without paying a confiscatory flight tax of 25 percent of their holdings in Germany.31 Identifying Jewish possessions was the next step.
Banks, financial institutions, and pension funds were among Dehomag’s most important clients. Indeed, Dehomag maintained an entire department for the banking industry. IBM designed highly specialized tabulating equipment for banks, including the BK and BKZ models, which were capable of producing customer statements and recording specific transactions. On August 12, 1935, savings banks were suddenly required to provide the Reichsbank with detailed information about all their depositors. Some banks used the Hollerith process by coding accounts into one of ten professional categories Dehomag had established. Hollerith Nachrichten published a notice for those institutions that did not yet own sorting machines, advertising that Dehomag could do the sorting in-house for a fee. The company bragged that it possessed the ability to cross-reference account numbers on bank deposits with census data, including grouping by profession or industry.32
Dehomag’s financial documentation capabilities soared when it un veiled a powerful new model dubbed the D-11, which could process numerous account developments, compute interest, and help create detailed customer records. Within months, the new D-11 would allow high-speed data management of bank accounts at dazzling levels.33
At the same time, the human identification process proliferated. Local and regional statistical offices registered new births on Hollerith cards, carefully noting the religion of both parents. Marriages were also registered on punch cards, again noting the religion of both partners. These cards were then forwarded to regional Dehomag service bureaus, such as the one in Saarbrucken at Adolf Hitlerstrasse 80. More than half the local regional statistical offices operated card punchers, but could not purchase their own sorters because of the backlog and expense of the machines. So Dehomag conducted the sorts on its own premises, just as it did for so many tabulations. Once Dehomag completed its work, the data was sent on to the Reich Statistical Office where it was combined with a confluence of other data streams.34
Personal information about Jewish people in Germany was always changing—precisely because of the innumerable dislocations Jews suffered. For this reason, starting in 1935, the authorities required Jewish communal leaders to report their members by age and gender no longer annually, but quarterly.35 Such data was just one more trickle comprising the river of cross-indexed information Hitlerites processed to isolate the Jewish nemesis.
Eventually, the Hitler regime felt statistically ready to espouse regulations defining just what constituted a Jewish business.
A firm was labeled “Jewish” if the owner or a partner was Jewish, if even a single Jew were in management or on the board of directors. If a quarter of its shares or votes were held by Jews, or under Jewish influence through nominees or agents, the company was classed Jewish; this regulation made it increasingly difficult and dangerous to mask ownership. A company could be owned and operated by undisputed Aryans, but if it maintained a branch managed by a Jew, that branch would be declared Jewish.36
Naturally, it would be impossible to certify a company as being Jewish unless denouncers knew the identities of all business principals and were profoundly certain which of those individuals qualified as Jewish under the Nuremberg Laws. But fewer Jews could hide from the dragnet IBM had helped the Reich construct. This forced companies to quickly identify and terminate, even if reluctantly, any of its Jewish management, and even its own Jewish ownership.
Once a company was deemed to be Jewish, as defined under the special regulations, its inventory and assets would ultimately be registered. Hollerith systems that could inventory people could inventory merchandise as well. Among Dehomag’s most important customers were the Trade Statistics Office in Hamburg, the Reichspost, and various national and local taxing offices. Decrees of the Reich Economics Ministry’s Kommissar for Price Control, beginning in 1936, required uniform reporting procedures by key industries. In most cases, the installation of IBM machinery was mandatory in order to comply. Government statisticians and Dehomag had developed coding systems for virtually all raw materials and finished goods. Eventually, the coding system would make it possible for the Nazis to organize its seizures with stunning specificity.37
None of Germany’s statistical programs came easy. All of them required on-going technical innovation. Every project required specific customized applications with Dehomag engineers carefully devising a column and corresponding hole to carry the intended information. Dummy cards were first carefully mocked-up in pen and pencil to make sure all categories and their placement were acceptable to both Dehomag and the reporting agency. No information could be input unless it conformed to Dehomag specifications. Therefore, the Reich tailored its data collection to match Hollerith requirements. Moreover, there was only one source to purchase the cards: Dehomag. The company sold them, generally in lots of 10,000, often preprinted with project names. Of course, once Dehomag approved the formats, it trained the reporting agency’s personnel to execute the work.38 Dehomag was Germany’s data maestro.