Senior IBM officials and managers, including its president, Thomas J. Watson, constantly micromanaged Hollerith Maschinen Gesellschaft, or Dehomag, during the prewar years. From 1933 to 1939, Dehomag was wholly owned by IBM and under the complete control of its New York management. To masquerade it as an Aryan company, IBM lent money to its senior German managers to purchase shares; this “profit sharing” amounted to some 10 percent to 15 percent.

Until the war started, the company’s New York officers dominated the Dehomag board of directors and could outvote or veto any move they did not authorize. Dehomag managers were little more than employees under the close supervision of IBM New York, as well as its Europe office, first in Paris and then relocated to Geneva.

In 1937 watson received a medal of recognition from Hitler in a lavish Berlin ceremony. Considered Hitler’s best friend in America, IBM was essential to the Nazis’ ability to organize its war-readiness efforts—from troop and rail movements to the census that helped them identify hundreds of thousands of Jews and other undesirables in Germany and Austria. Since IBM always leased rather than sold its equipment, its service personnel were intimately involved with the census.

On September 1, 1939, when Germany launched its blitzkrieg against Poland, IBM Germany was still completely under New York control, directly and through Geneva. Despite widespread boycotting of Germany by other American corporations, Watson proudly relished his Nazi decoration and was still the Nazi leadership’s industrialist darling. The same month worldwide headlines reported barbarous massacres, rapes, starvation, systematic deportations and unchecked epidemics. A New York Times headline announced “250,000 Jews Listed as Dead in Poland.”

Polish Jewry numbered more than three million and a German military review declared, “It is a mistake to massacre some 10,000 Jews and Poles, as is being done at present…this will not eradicate the idea of a Polish state, nor will the Jews be exterminated.”

On September 13, after reporting the German government’s desire for the “removal of the Polish Jewish population from the European domain,” the Times noted, “How…the ‘removal’ of Jews from Poland [can be achieved] without their extermination…is not explained.”

Eight days later, Reinhard Heydrich, chief of Heinrich Himmler’s Security Service, held a secret conference. at which he circulated an express letter sent to the chiefs of his Einsatzgruppen, the special mobile task forces that fanned out through conquered lands murdering as many Jews as fast as they could. Their methods—burning Jews in synagogues and marching families to trenches and shooting them assembly-line fashion—were too sporadic and inefficient to quickly destroy millions.

Heydrich’s secret memo described a plan for population control. Jews were to be relocated to “concentration towns.” Jewish communities of less than 500 were to be dissolved and consolidated into the larger sites. “Care must be taken,” he wrote, “that only such towns be chosen...as are either railroad junctions or at least lie on a railway.”

He demanded “the chiefs of the Einsatzgruppen report to me continually regarding…the census of Jews in their districts.… The numbers are to be divided into Jews who will be migrating from the country, and those who are already in the towns.”

H. Rottke, Dehomag’s general manager, helped expedite Nazi Germany’s goals by assuring access to IBM’s superior instruments.

September 9, 1939

Dear Mr. Watson:
During your last visit in Berlin at the beginning of July, you made the kind offer to me that you might be willing to furnish the German company machines from Endicott in order to shorten our long delivery terms. I…asked you to leave with us for study purposes one alphabetic tabulating machine and a collator out of the American machines at present in Germany. You have complied with this request, for which I thank you very much, and have added that in cases of urgent need, I may make use of other American machines.…

You will understand that under today’s conditions, a certain need has arisen for such machines, which we do not build as yet in Germany. Therefore, I should like to make use of your kind offer and ask you to leave with the German company for the time being the alphabetic tabulating machines which are at present still in the former Austria.… This offer, made orally by you, dear Mr. Watson…will undoubtedly be greatly appreciated in many and especially responsible circles.… We should thank you if you would ask your Geneva organization, at the same time, to furnish us the necessary repair parts for the maintenance of the machines.…

Yours very truly,

H. Rottke

But the 405 was of prime importance to Germany for its speed and its critical ability to create alphabetized lists. The 405 could calculate 1.2 million multiplications in just 42 hours. By comparison, the slightly older 601 would need 800 hours.

The 405’s were one of the company’s most profitable inventions. Previously, Dehomag was only able to provide such machines to key governmental agencies directly from America or through its other European subsidiaries—a costly financial foreign exchange transaction, which also required Watson’s permission. Germany had taken over Poland and war had been declared in Europe. Such imports from America were no longer possible. But Dehomag wanted the precious alphabetizing equipment still in Austria: five variously configured alphabetical punches, two alphabetical interpreters, six alphabetical printing tabulators, as well as one collator. However, these valuable assets were still owned and controlled by a prior IBM subsidiary.

In other words, even though Hitler controlled Austria, only Watson controlled IBM Austria.

On september 27, 1939, the day Poland formally capitulated, J.W. Schotte, IBM’s European general manager in Geneva acting as Watson’s intermediary, telephoned Rottke and a Dehomag management team in Berlin to explain regretfully that Watson refused to transfer the alphabetizers. Instead, Watson offered to arrange for Dehomag to take possession of 34 broken ones returned from Russia and lying dormant in a Hamburg warehouse, which could be repaired.

Rottke refused the offer and insisted Schotte call Watson. Incensed and threatening, Rottke told Schotte, “IBM is big enough to take care of its customers,” adding, “depriving us of these few machines might later be regretted.”

Schotte called Rottke the next morning, saying that Watson had agreed to the transfer. Thus, Rottke could report that Watson confirmed Dehomag would be “keeping the machines until further notice.”

Some three million Polish Jews were to be catalogued for further action in a massive cascade of repetitive census-taking, registrations and inventories with up-to-date information being instantly available to various Nazi planning agencies and military occupation offices. How much food would the Jews require? How much usable forced labor for armament factories and useful skills could they generate? How many thousands would die from month to month under the new starvation regimen? Under wartime conditions, it would be a marvel of population registration, a statistical feat. No time was to be lost.

The Reich was ready. During the summer of 1939 its Office for Military–Economic Planning, with jurisdiction over Hollerith usage, had conducted its own study of the ethnic minorities in Poland. By November 2, Fritz Arlt, Jewish-population-statistics wizard who was familiar with city by city ancestral roots, had been appointed head of the Population and Welfare Administration of Occupied Poland. Arlt was devoted to population registrations and race-science issues. His statistical publication featured such data as Jewish population per square meter, with sliding projections of decrease resulting from forced labor and starvation. This information was tabulated on IBM equipment. Arlt ruled out permanent emigration, since this would allow Jews to continue their existence. Instead, one Arlt article asserts, “We can count on the mortality of some subjugated groups.”

Meanwhile, Heydrich sent a follow-up cable to his occupying forces in Poland, Upper Silesia and Czechoslovakia, outlining how a new census scheduled for December 17 would escalate the process from identification and cataloging to deportation and execution, as people were rapidly moved into Polish ghettos.

Heydrich’s memo decreed “the evacuation of Poles and Jews in the new Eastern Provinces will be conducted by the Security Police…. The census documents provide the basis for the evacuation. All persons in the new provinces possess a copy. The census form is the temporary identification card giving permission to stay. Therefore, all persons have to hand over the card before deportation… anyone caught without this card is subject to possible execution….”

Relying on the lightning speed of Hollerith machines, Heydrich was able to assert “the large-scale evacuation can begin no sooner than around January 1, 1940.”

Ultimately, the census took place from December 17 to December 23. Each person over 12 was required to fill out forms in duplicate and be fingerprinted. Part of the form was stamped and returned as the person’s new identification form. Without it, they would be shot. With it, they would be deported.

December was a busy month for IBM’s German subsidiary—and extremely profitable. Throughout Germany and the conquered territories, Dehomag frantically tried to keep up with the pace of unending census-taking, registrations and analyses of people, property and military operations that required its equipment, repair services and card processing. Millions of cards were printed each week. Understandably, all of Rottke’s hard feelings against Watson were now gone. That December Rottke could write to Watson, “As Christmas is approaching I feel an urgent desire to express to you and your family my most sincere and best wishes for a joyful Yuletide.… I take this opportunity to thank you again most heartily for the understanding by you in regard to my requests during the past year.”

In early 1940, IBM Geneva sent Watson a statement of Dehomag’s 1939 profits. The numbers were almost double the previous year, totaling RM 3,953,721 even after all royalty income and other disguised revenue. The Dehomag profit statement to Watson also explained that almost half the 1939 profit was recorded in December 1939.

IBM’s involvement in Nazi-occupied Poland continued. IBM New York incorporated a special German subsidiary in Warsaw known as Watson Buromaschinen GmbH. The subsidiary maintained a printing shop across the street from the Warsaw Ghetto at Rymarska 6. Some 20 million punch cards were printed there from special paper stock delivered by Germany. The chief customer was the railroad.

The polish case is just one of many examples of IBM New York’s intense involvement with Germany’s murderous activities. In 1940, Watson ostentatiously re-turned the medal Hitler had given him. Eventually, after the United States entered the war in December 1941, IBM subsidiaries in Nazi-controlled countries were placed under German-appointed receivers.

But the receivers were determined not to loot the IBM network and to keep most of the existing IBM managers and employees in place. Only a profitable, productive IBM could continue to serve the technology needs of the Reich. Of course, all other European subsidiaries in neutral countries, such as Sweden, Spain and Romania, continued under IBM’s direct control through its Geneva office, even though the New York headquarters sent a notice asking not to be informed of the details.

After the war, IBM reclaimed its subsidiaries from receivership and collected all the frozen profits.

It was never about anti-Semitism. It was never about Nazism. It was always about money.

Edwin Black is the author of IBM and the Holocaust (Crown Publishing/Random House).