But Veesenmayer, with Eichmann at his side, hammered out a domestic power-sharing agreement with those Hungarian leaders that would ignore the Allies and cooperate with Hitler’s mandate. To ensure close supervision, he installed his own expert in the Hungarian Office of Jewish Affairs to monitor a torrent of anti-Semitic decrees. Veesenmayer described the progress as one of “unusual rapidity under local conditions.”143
A few weeks later, with confiscation and ghettoization nearly complete, the deportations began. Veesenmayer divided Hungary into five zones, plus Budapest. But Zone 1, the Carpathians, required a full seven weeks to empty because not enough trains were available. On April 20, 1944, Veesenmayer complained to the Foreign Office that he was unable to locate enough freight cars for his task. But by the end of April, two trains were arranged. Each carried 4,000 Jews from the Kistarcsa internment camp. Destination: Auschwitz.144
Veesenmayer would learn to locate freight cars and schedule them in and out of Hungary like clockwork. As efficiency increased, only ten days would be needed per zone. After the zones were emptied in late June, 437,402 Jews were gone. But then a struggle ensued as to whether Budapest’s Jews would be deported to their death as well. Hungarian leaders hated Jews but feared war crimes trials more. Veesenmayer did not care how close the Russians were. A stalemate developed with Hungarian Chief of State Admiral Miklos Horthy. Eichmann sent one train filled with Budapest Jews to a death camp only to have Horthy order it stopped at the border and sent back.145
Horthy eventually dismissed the puppet leaders Veesenmayer had installed and ordered their arrest. Veesenmayer protested bitterly and complained to Berlin. Von Ribbentrop telegraphed a warning: “The Fuhrer expects that the measures against the Budapest Jews will now be taken without any further delay by the Hungarian government… no delay of any kind in the execution of the general measures against Jews [will be permitted].”146
Veesenmayer then warned Horthy that two additional Wehrmacht armored units would soon be sent to Hungary. Horthy still refused to cooperate. Eventually, Veesenmayer ordered Horthy’s son kidnapped. Bundled into a blanket, the son was driven to an airfield and flown to Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria. Veesenmayer threatened to have the younger Horthy shot if Hungary did not comply.147
Compromises, broken and amended, were made with Hungarian leaders. Eventually, Hungary agreed to deport 50,000 Jews to Austria and, the remainder of Budapest Jewry were sent to concentration camps. Beginning on October 20, 1944, thousands of terrified, weeping Jews were pulled from their apartments and homes in all-day operations. There weren’t enough freight cars. So within days, the 27,000 assembled Jews were sent on a death march to the Austrian border. Lines of marching Jews stretched out from Budapest, miles and miles long, girded by a parallel of corpses heaped along the road. Veesenmayer reported that 2,000 to 4,000 were being added daily. Many thousands died en route from the exhaustion, exposure, and starvation. They were in fact marched to death.148
During the war years, IBM supplied elaborate Hollerith systems to nearly all the railways of Nazi-dominated Europe.149 Knowing how many freight cars and locomotives to schedule on any given day in any given location, anywhere across the map of Europe, required the computational capabilities of Hollerith.150 Punch card systems identified the exact location of each freight car, how much cargo it could accept, and what schedule it could adhere to for maximum efficiency.151 In fact, the main method of tracking freight cars was a network of Hollerith systems installed at railroad junctions across Europe.152 Using IBM equipment, freight car locations were updated every forty-eight hours. Without it, the location of rolling stock would generally be more than two weeks out of date and useless in a wartime setting.153 In 1938 alone, more than 200 million punch cards were printed for European railroads.154 In Nazi Poland, the railroads, which constituted some 95 percent of the IBM subsidiary’s business, were accustomed to using more than 21 million cards annually.155 In Nazi-allied Romania, the railroads used a large installation of machines in the Ministry of Communications.156
In Yugoslavia, where Veesenmayer worked with the Ustashi, the railroads used Ministry of Commerce machines in Belgrade.157 In Hungary, where Veesenmayer and Eichmann coordinated continuously with the railroads, the machines were Holleriths.158 Standardized forms on daily reports registered every detail of train operation from passenger load per car and fuel consumed per train, to locomotive efficiency and which government department would be billed for the freight.159 Hollerith made the trains run on time in Nazi Europe. These were the trains Veesenmayer and his cohorts relied upon.
During all the genocide years, 1942-1945, the Dehomag that Watson fought to protect did remain intact. Ultimately, it was governed by a special Reich advisory committee representing the highest echelons of the Nazi hierarchy. The Dehomag advisory committee replaced the traditional corporate board of directors. As with any board, the committee’s duty was to advise senior management, approve and veto special projects, and mandate priorities. The day-to-day decisions were left to managers to execute. When needed, it coordinated with IBM Geneva or its representatives in other subsidiaries. Four men sat on the advisory board. One was a trustee. Second was Passow, chief of the Maschinelles Berichtwesen. Third was Heidinger. Fourth was Adolf Hitler’s personal representative.160
Hitler’s representative on Dehomag’s advisory committee was Dr. Edmund Veesenmayer.161
PART THREE
X. THE STRUGGLE TO STAY IN THE AXIS
DURING THE WINTER OF 1940-1941, AS CHAUNCEY NEGOTIATED with Nazis in Germany, war enveloped Europe. While Watson and IBM executives were fighting daily to retain their commercial primacy in the Axis conquest machine, millions of Jews were fighting to stay alive in a continent overrun with highly organized, intensely automated Nazi forces and their surrogates. Newspaper articles, dramatic photos, and newsreels continued to tell the tragic, even if by now familiar, story of Jewish destruction.
November 9, 1940, New York Times, “Reich Jews Sent to South France; 10,000 Reported Put Into Camps.” At Camp de Gurs, the refugees, it was said, were forced to live in small wooden barracks without enough water and practically no food supply.1
November 26, 1940, New York Times, “Walls Will Enclose Warsaw Jews Today; 500,000 Begin ‘New Life’ in Nazi-Built Ghetto.” By German decree, all Jews in Warsaw have been required to take up residence in the ghetto… with as many as seven persons living in one room in some buildings. The wall—unusual in modern times, surrounds 100 or more city blocks and closes off 200 streets and even street car lines.2
December 5, 1940, New York Times, “Rumania Emerges From ‘Revolution’; Death Toll Nearly 400, Wounded Exceed 300—Terror Reign Lasted for Eight Days.” Moldavian Iron Guard “Purists” launched a pogrom of large proportions. Jews were kidnapped, beaten and killed at Galati and Turnu Severinu, Giurgiu and Craieva…. In daytime raids, Iron Guards confiscated Jewish shops in Brasov, Timisoara and Ploesti.3