Indeed, whenever Jewish persecution was reported, the media invariably reported the incessant registrations and censuses as Nazidom’s initial step. The methodology, technology, and the connection to IBM were still far below public awareness. But some specifics were beginning to appear. For example, a March 2, 1940, New York Times article, entitled “Jews in Cracow Move to Ghettos,” described how 80,000 Jews had been herded into overcrowded flats in a squalid urban district devoid of resources. “A common sight,” the report asserted, “is the white armband with the blue Star of David, which all Jews must wear by government decree… [signifying] their registration in the government card file.”6
Only with great caution could Watson now publicly defend the Hitler agenda, even through euphemisms and code words. Most Americans would not tolerate anyone who even appeared to be a Nazi sympathizer or collaborator. So, as he had done since Kristallnacht in late 1938, Watson continued to insert corporate distance between himself and all involvement in the affairs of his subsidiaries in Nazi Europe—even as he micro-managed their day-to-day operations. More than ever, he now channeled his communications to Nazi Europe through trusted intermediaries in Geneva and elsewhere on the Continent. He controlled subsidiary operations through attorneys and employees acting as nominee owners, following the pattern set in Czechoslovakia and Poland.7
In May 1940, as American society prepared for an inevitable war with Hitler, Watson worked to secure the underpinnings of his public image. He intensified his advocacy for peace, and against all war.
“Universal peace is one of the most desirable, most worthwhile ideals in the world today,” Watson insisted in a May 4 speech to reporters. “It cannot be sold by a few people working in widely scattered communities. The project requires a worldwide organization of enthusiastic, hard-working individuals selling the gospel of peace.”8 Watson advertised IBM as such an organization.
Four days later, on May 8, Watson told reporters that the company’s latest course held in Endicott, New York, for IBM sales representatives from twenty-four countries was to “enable the students… to make greater contributions to the cause of world peace through world trade.”9
Watson’s advocacy for peace was limitless. May 13, 1940, was proclaimed IBM Day at the World’s Fair being held that month in New York. IBM Day was nothing less than an extravaganza of orchestrated adulation for the company. A dozen chartered trains brought in 7,000 IBM employees and their wives from company facilities across the nation to visit the architectonic IBM Pavilion. Each IBMer wore a red ribbon of solidarity with the company. Two thousand lucky ones were chosen to be feted at a massive Waldorf-Astoria dinner. Special congratulations to IBM, as usual, were issued by leading politicians from President Roosevelt to the Mayor of New York. To underscore the drama, Watson commissioned an original orchestral work, The IBM Symphony, a bombastic composition dedicated to the uplifting spirit of the firm.10
The climax of IBM Day, however, was Watson’s speech on the subject of peace. He delivered his sermon to 30,000 specially invited guests gathered at the vast Court of Peace located in front of the sweeping USA Pavilion. Mutual Radio broadcast the highly publicized event countrywide.11
Peace was Watson’s message. War was bad, he argued at every opportunity. It would prove nothing but military might, waste lives and precious resources. War was in fact the worst recourse for the world, and all right-thinking men should be opposed to any involvement with it, Watson pleaded. As head of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Watson everywhere proclaimed his driving mantra: “World Peace through World Trade.” Indeed, Watson must have seemed to the public like the very champion of peace and the arch adversary of all conflict. Ironically, at that very moment, Watson and IBM were in fact Europe’s most successful organizers not of peace, but of the ravages of war.
Even as Watson was preaching the imperatives of peace, IBM was ecstatic about its accomplishments revolutionizing warfare not only for the Third Reich, but also for its Axis allies and even other European nations about to be vanquished by Hitler. In spring 1940, J. W. Schotte, IBM’s general manager for Europe, dispatched a confidential report from his Geneva office to senior IBM executives in America. Schotte’s dispatch addressed the activities not only of just Dehomag, but also of the two dozen European subsidiaries and agencies that worked as inter-connected branches of the New York company.12
Schotte’s enthusiastic memo was entitled “Our Dealings with War Ministries in Europe.” It began, “Up to about one and a half years ago [about the time of Kristallnacht in 1938], our negotiations with the war ministries of the twenty-four countries which are under the jurisdiction of IBM European headquarters in Geneva, had not been very successful. This was due to several rea sons, but mainly to the fact that in military circles administration was considered a ‘necessary evil’ of little importance for the defense of the country.”13
IBM had finally succeeded in gaining the necessary insider access to sensitive military projects, Schotte reported, so that company engineers could properly design punch card applications for war use. Schotte explained that in prior years “the military men in Europe have been reluctant to reveal their problems and programs to civilians. It has been overlooked in such instances that there is a distinct difference between knowing which problems exist and what system is applied, and the data and figures to which the system has to be applied.”14 As such, Schotte drew a fine theoretical distinction between IBM possessing specific knowledge of the facts about a military operation, such as the number of people to be counted or a list of German bombing raids, and the actions themselves.
The big change in military acceptance of Hollerith systems appeared at the end of 1938, confirmed Schotte, when “in Germany a campaign started for, what has been termed… ‘organization of the second front.’” He elaborated, “In military literature and in newspapers, the importance and necessity of having in all phases of life, behind the front, an organization which would remain intact and would function with ‘Blitzkrieg’ efficiency… was brought out. What we had been preaching in vain for years all at once began to be realized.”15
Schotte’s memo made clear that only at IBM’s initiative did the militarists comprehend what magic they could achieve with Hollerith automation. “Lectures on the punched card system were held by our representatives before officials of the general staff of various countries and, with our men, the study of possible applications was begun… progress was rather slow, and it was not until about eight or nine months ago [summer 1939] when conditions in Europe clearly indicated that a war was more or less unavoidable, that the matter became acute.”16
Asserting that IBM sold to either side and had enjoyed an ever-escalating volume since the summer of 1939, Schotte’s memo declared, “The War Ministries of Yugoslavia, Rumania, Hungary, Poland, Sweden, Holland and France (these are the ones that I remember very distinctly from memory) sent us orders for punched card equipment, some of which is already installed, others being installed when the war started, and further equipment not yet installed or still in transport.”17