IBM and Germany 1922–1941

Abstract

In 1941, one of IBM's most profitable customers was the German government. Germany leased IBM's punch card tabulation machines (ancestors of the computer), and used them in its war against France, the United Kingdom and others. They were also used to conduct the census, to keep track of Jews and other “undesirables”, and to operate the concentration camps. In 1937, Hitler awarded Watson a medal. By 1940, however, US public opinion had turned against Germany and he returned the medal. Outraged, German IBM executives and high-ranking Nazis threatened IBM's control over its subsidiary. Although its activities were legal under US law, IBM was concerned about maintaining control of its German division, shielding itself from criticism in the US, and remaining eligible for more German government contracts. Watson needed to decide whether to maintain IBM's lucrative relationship with Germany, make a clean break (and lose all its assets), or perhaps do something entirely different.

Full text

IBM and Germany 1922–1941
Donald W McCormick
1
and
James C Spee
2
1
Department of Management, College of
Business and Economics, California State
University Northridge, Northridge, CA, USA;
2
School of Business, University of Redlands,
Redlands, CA, USA
Correspondence:
Donald W McCormick, Department of
Management, College of Business and
Economics, California State University
Northridge, 18111 Nordhoff St.,
Northridge CA 91330.
E-mail: dwm2@cwru.edu
Abstract
In 1941, one of IBM’s most profitable customers was the German government.
Germany leased IBM’s punch card tabulation machines (ancestors of the
computer), and used them in its war against France, the United Kingdom
and others. They were also used to conduct the census, to keep track of Jews
and other ‘‘undesirables’’, and to operate the concentration camps. In 1937,
Hitler awarded Watson a medal. By 1940, however, US public opinion had
turned against Germany and he returned the medal. Outraged, German IBM
executives and high-ranking Nazis threatened IBM’s control over its subsidiary.
Although its activities were legal under US law, IBM was concerned about
maintaining control of its German division, shielding itself from criticism in the
US, and remaining eligible for more German government contracts. Watson
needed to decide whether to maintain IBM’s lucrative relationship with
Germany, make a clean break (and lose all its assets), or perhaps do something
entirely different.
Organization Management Journal (2008) 5, 208–213. doi:10.1057/omj.2008.25
Keywords: IBM; Germany; business ethics; Nazi; Dehomag
1922–1935
In 1922, IBM, then known as ‘‘The Computer-Tabulating Recording
Company’’, acquired Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen Gesellschaft,
herein referred to as Dehomag, a German punch-card company
(Avl, November 1972). Dehomag’s founder and general manager,
Willy Heidinger, stayed on to manage the business. IBM let him
keep 10% of the stock, under the cond ition that if he left
Dehomag, he had to sell it back to IBM. Heidinger resented this
and IBM’s control in general, but that did not interfere with
Dehomag’s profitability. In spite of Germany’s disastrous post-
World War I economy, Dehomag grew – opening its first plant
in Sindelfingen, Germany in 1924. By 1927, Dehomag’s profits
exceeded $400 ,000 (Black, 2001) in a year when IBM’s gross income
was $14 millio n and net earnings were $4 million (IBM, n.d.).
In 1933, Dehomag built a new plant in Berlin. By then, IBM’s
total annual income was on its way to a record $17 million, with
$6 million in net earnings (IBM, n.d.). Dehomag provided a
significant part of this – over half of IBM’s overseas income (Black,
2001).
Dehomag’s income came primarily from leasing punch card
sorting equipment and selling raw materials – mostly punch cards
customized to meet customer needs. Dehomag had the license to
use IBM’s proprietary card sortin g and tabulating technology in
Organization Management Journal (2008) 5, 208–213
&
2008 Eastern Academy of Management All rights reserved 1541-6518

Germany. IBM had a much stronger reputation and
much more market penetration than any of its
competitors (Black, 2001).
In January of 1933, Adolf Hitler became Germany’s
Chancellor and publicly promised to create a
master race, to dominate Europ e, and to eliminate
Jews from Europe. A few weeks later, in February,
Germany’s parliament building burned down.
Hitler blamed this on the Communists and asked
for emergency powers to combat the Communist
threat; powers were granted by frightened legisla-
tors. A month after this, in March of 1933, the Nazi
government created the first concentration camp
for Jews, political prisoners, and others. In the next
month, April, the Nazi regime began restricting the
civil rights of Jews and other ‘‘non-Aryan races.’’
One law fired all Jews from civil service jobs; other
laws barred Jews from practicing law and limited
the number of Jews who could enroll in German
high schools. More and more employment oppor-
tunities and professions were denied to Jews – from
editing a newspaper to owning land to working in
the arts. By mid-1933, half a year after Hitler took
power, 60,000 Jews were in German prisons
(Wiesenthal Center, 2004). Newspapers reported
these events in Germany, but the American press
was confused and skeptical with regard to ‘‘Nazi
anti-Jewish measures’’ and ‘‘most Americans felt no
obligation to concern themselves with foreign
countries’’ (Turner, 2001: 637). In 1933, the US
Government did not have laws against trade with
Germany (Black, 2001).
In 1933, Dehomag’s largest contract was for
leasing machiner y to tabulate the German census.
Like previous German census questionnaires, the
1933 questionnaire asked for information about
religion and native language that could be used to
identify ‘‘undesirables’’ in the population (United
States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2004). When
census workers found someone who was Jewish,
they used a special, separate card that noted the
person’s birthplace. These cards were not processed
with the standard census information, but were
handled separately (Kisterman, 1997). The success
of Dehomag’s census contract led to additional
work scheduling the German railroads. Dehomag’s
punch card machines were also used to compile
‘‘nearly all the medical, health and welfare statistics
in Germany’’ (Black, 2001: 94).
IBM and Dehomag welcomed the money this
new work brought in. But the German government
restricted the movement of currency out of the
country, which was still reco vering from the
depression and hyperinflation of the 1920s. IBM
worked around this by listing patent royalty pay-
ments Dehomag made to IBM USA on Dehomag’s
income statement as ‘‘expenses’’ rather than divi-
dends, which exempted them from the restrictions .
IBM’s President, Thomas Watson, then had these
royalty paymen ts posted to a bank accoun t in
Switzerland, where they would be more accessible
for later transfer to the US if needed. Dehomag
invested the rest of its profits in Germany, as
they could not be leg ally transferred outside the
country.
At the Janua ry 1934 ceremony celebrating the
opening of a new Dehomag plant in Germany, IBM
President Thomas Watson’s personal representative
and many Nazi officials attended. Willy Heidinger,
a Nazi supporter and Dehomag’s gener al manager,
gave a speech in which he said
The physician examines the human body and determines
whether y all organs are working for the benefit of the
entire organism. We [Dehomag] are very much like the
physician, in that we dissect, cell by cell, the German
cultural body. We report every individual characteristic y
on a little card y 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 y.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
(Heidinger, 1934).
Watson received a translation of this speech along
with a list of the Nazi officials that were invited
to the ceremony. He sent H eidinger a telegram
congratulating him for a job well done and for the
sentiments he expressed so well (Black, 2001: 51).
It was likely that the president of IBM was aware
of Hitler’s oppressive actions (Allen 2002). Protest
demonstrations against the new German govern-
ment’s actions passed near Watson’s office on
Madison Avenue in New York City. On 10 May
1933, more than 100,000 marchers in New York
City demanded that all American companies stop
doing business with Germany. IBM was not speci-
fically targeted in the protest, most likely because
the Dehomag name shielded IBM from publicity
about its activities in Germany (Black, 1984 ).
The question confronting all American businessmen who
traded with Germany in 1933 was whether trading with
IBM and Germany 1922–1941 McCormick and Spee
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Germany was worth either the economic risk or moral
descent. The question faced Watson at IBM as well. Watson’s
primary concern in regards to Dehomag was to maintain
IBM’s dominant position in the German market, but IBM
was in a unique commercial position. While Watson and
IBM were famous on the American business scene, below
the public’s awareness, the company’s overseas operations
continued helping the German government. IBM did not
import German merchandise; it merely exported American
technology. The IBM name did not even appear on any of
thousands of index cards in the address files of leading New
York boycott organizations. Moreover, the American public
and business community had not yet realized the power of
punch cards to automate statistical processes in organiza-
tions. So the risk that highly visible trading might provoke
economic retaliation seemed low, especially since Dehomag
did not even possess a name suggestive of IBM or Watson.
(Black, 2001: 40)
1935–1938
In the years that followed, Nazi Germany further
reduced the civil rights of German Jews. Race laws
passed in 1935 banned them from labor unions, from
the military, and from performing in cultural events.
And by 1936, a special division of the Schutstaffel
(SS) had been established specifically to operate the
concentration camps (Wiesenthal Center, 2004).
As this happend, world condemnation of
Nazi oppression increased, and countries adjoining
Germany boycotted it, helping to isolate it from
foreign trade. Despite this, ‘‘most major US com-
panies sold to Nazi Germany, and many ran
factories inside the country’’ (Maney, 2003: 204).
US companies did this not only to make money, but
also because they feared that if they stopped doing
business with Germany now, they would be locked
out of the European market later (Maney, 2003).
Germany only let German-owned companies do
business with the government. To get around this,
IBM successfully disguised its ownership of Deho-
mag with a complex director stock ownership
scheme. Dehomag’s sales flourished as more areas
of German government and industry adopted
punch card technology to manage complex data.
For instance, in 1935, Dehomag handled 140
million reservations for the German National Rail-
road (IBM Deutschland, 2005). Watson made
several trips to Germany (New York Times, 1933;
Black, 2001) and was impressed with the Germans’
use of punch cards to manage information in many
key industries. Dehomag obtained major contracts
with the German army, navy, and air force.
Germany’s armed forces regarded IBM’s punch card
technology to be so essential that in 1937, they
took control of all punch card machines and
allowed them to be used only by organizations that
it approved.
Watson was elected President of the International
Chamber of Commerce in 1936. In 1937, Watson
visited Europe and received decorations from
Sweden, Yugoslavia, Belgium, and France. The
International Chamber of Commerce scheduled
its 1937 annual meeting in Berlin, where Hitler
presented Watson with Germany’s second-highest
honor for foreigners – a medal tha t honored
Watson for promoting a cause that he spoke about
frequently – world peace through world trad e (New
York Times, 1937a, b; Tedlow, 2003). After receiving
the medal, Watson traveled to Italy to meet
Mussolini, ‘‘having long admired him for the order
he had brought to Italy’’ (Belden and Belden, 1962:
196). At an IBM sales convention in Italy, Watson
said, ‘‘the present generation in Italy is going to
benefit greatly as a result of the pioneering work of
your leader, Mussolini’’ (Maney, 2003: 209). Watson
also received an award from Mussolini’s fascist
government (Sobel, 1981).
In his autobiography, Watson’s son wrote about
his mother during this period and how she told
him of her concern for her friends in Berlin,
including a Jewish family, the Wertheims. Even
though the Wertheims owned one of Berlin’s largest
department stores, they had their store windows
smashed by Nazi gangs, were expelled from
Germany, and were forced to sell their store for
almost nothing (Watson, 1990).
Maney (2003), one of Watson’s biographers,
noted that
Watson spent more than a month traveling in Europe and
meeting kings and prime ministers, and in the prickly
atmosphere of 1937, every conversation must have turned
to Germany and its mistreatment of not only Jews, but of
Catholics and anyone not considered a member of Hitler’s
master race. Watson regularly read newspapers and maga-
zines, which reported the Nazi atrocities. He received
information from IBM’s European offices. He knew about
the Wertheims. He knew more than most Americans about
the events in Germany (p. 209).
Still, Watson felt that Germany was the victim of
bad publicity and deserved to be part of the
community of world trade. Watson drafted a letter
to the German economics minister in which he
described ‘‘the necessity of extending a sympa-
thetic understanding to the German people and
their aims under the leadership of Adolf Hitler.’’
The draft letter ends with ‘‘an expression of my
highest esteem for himself [Hitler], his country and
his people’’ (Watson, 1990, cited in Black, 2001).
IBM and Germany 1922–1941 McCormick and Spee
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The Nazis honored other US executives besides
Watson. In 1938, a few months after Germany
annexed Austria, the Nazis awarded Henry Ford the
Grand Cross – the highest honor for foreigners. A
month later they gave the same award to a General
Motors (GM) executive. GM made aircraft and
trucks for the German army and air force (Dobbs,
1998). As IBM noted in a 2001 press release about
its involvement with Nazi Germany, ‘‘hundreds of
businesses did business in Germany at that time’’
(Makovich, 2001). In fact, ‘‘most major US compa-
nies sold to Nazi Germa ny, and many ran factories
inside the country’’ (Maney, 2003: 20). This, despite
the fact that
German intentions became clear to Americans in November
1938, when the rage of Kristallnacht swept across Germany.
Nazi gangs, directed by Hitler, shattered the glass of every
building owned by a Jew, set fires and looted Jewish homes
and businesses, and beat Jews in the street. American
newspapers rang out with banner headlines, and American
public sentiment turned sharply against Hitler (Maney,
2003: 214–5).
Watson knew of the difficulties German Jews
were facing, and privately, he even helped a few
to escape (Maney, 2003). But Watson’s major
concern about Germany was Dehomag and his
obligation to IBM shareholders. As Germany was
IBM’s second-largest market (Maney, 2003), he did
not want the Ge rman government to set up a
competitor to Dehomag. He wanted to make sure
that IBM would thrive in Germany over the long
term.
1939–1941
Watson con tinued his advocacy of world peace
through world trade. At ‘‘IBM Day’’ at the New York
World’s Fair, Watson gave a speech to thousands
about the importance of universal peace and how
increased world trade would eliminate the need
for countries to go to war in order to obtain
resources they need (New York Times, 1939a) .
Watson was even a trustee of the Carnegie Founda-
tion for International Peace. But while he gave
speeches on peace, his company was taking orders
from and delivering punch card machines to the
War Ministries of Germany, Yugoslavia, Romania,
Poland, Sweden, and France (Black, 2001: 203–5).
IBM’s subsidiaries ‘‘sold and maintained [its
punch card machines] to France to replace
[ones] destroyed by bombing runs designed by
[IBM’s punch card machines] in Germany’’ (Sebok,
2001).
In 1939, Dehomag again received the contract for
the German census. According to the New York
Times (17 May 1939b),
It will provide detailed information on the ancestry,
religious faith and material possessions of all residents.
Special blanks will be provided on which each person must
state whether he is of pure ‘‘Aryan’’ blood. The status of
each of his grandparents must be given and substantiated
by evidence in case of inquiry.
Sources other than census records, such as
‘‘marriage, tax, Chamber of Commerce, and Jewish
community records (supplemented by numerous
and ready informants)’’ (Hayes, 2001), were also
used to track people’s racial identity. One Nazi
official said that this census
is intended to also determine the blood-wise configuration
of the German population y the results could also be
recorded on the police department’s technical registration
cards. The police would thus gain an insight into the racial
composition of the persons living in their jurisdictions. And
this would also accomplish the goals set by the Main Office
of the Security Police. (Quoted in Aly and Roth, 2000: 76)
In 1939, Hitler set out to conquer most of
Western Europe. Anticipating Germany’s expansion
of its borders, Dehomag nego tiated for permission
to expand its operations into the rest of what was
soon to be German controlled Europe. IBM formed
a new subsidiary in Poland called Watson Business
Machines to replace its former licensee, which was
weakened by the German invasion (Black, 2002).
Germany passed more anti-Jewish laws, banning
Jews from professions such as teaching, accounting,
and dentistry. Jews were denied tax deductions and
child allowances. Apparently only now upset by
Nazi policies towards Jews and others, Watson
wrote a letter to Hitler, pointing out the economic
damage that could accrue to Germany by ‘‘a loss
of good will to your country.’’ He also wrote, ‘‘I
respectfully appeal to you to give consideration to
applying the Golden Rule in dealing wit h these
minorities’’ (Watson, quoted in Maney, 2003: 218).
As the German army invaded and occupied
Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland, the govern-
ment accelerated its relocation of Jews to concen-
tration camps. Census and other data were quickly
assembled and processed using Dehomag equip-
ment – allowing the SS to analyze rapidly the
requirements for railcars, food, and other resources
for the concentration camps across its newly
occupied territories (Black, 2001).
Dehomag designed custom programs so that its
machines could be leased to concentration camps.
IBM and Germany 1922–1941 McCormick and Spee
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‘‘As of 1940 and 1941, IBM USA inventories
documented the location of Hollerith machines in
camps y along with their serial numbers and the
amounts paid for the lease of each machine’’
(Hausfeld, 2001). Punch card data helped camp
administrators track the amount of food needed to
keep prison ers alive for a minimum amount of
time; to identify prisoners; to keep track of prison-
ers’ ethnicity (including the degree of Jewish and
Aryan background) and religion; to determine
work assignments; to keep track of punishments
administered to each prisoner; to record whether
a prisoner was able to work; and to maintain
death statistics. To simplify data analysis, prisoners
were tattooed with a five-digit code that corre-
sponded to the punch card containing their demo-
graphic data. When a German factory needed
prison laborers with particular skills, Dehomag’s
punch cards were used to identify such prisoners
(Black, 2002) and move them to where they were
needed (Table 1).
Business was booming for Dehomag. By 1940, it
employed over eight times as many people as it did
only 10 years earlier (see Table 1). Its business with
the German government, Dehomag’s primary cus-
tomer, also grew. Its machines kept track of German
munitions, spare parts for the German fighter
planes and bombers, combat orders, and troop
movements. IBM’s activities were legal, and royalty
payments to IBM continued to flow to the US
through its Swiss bank account.
But by June 1940, the US had become even
more anti-Nazi. Germany had invaded France and
was bombing Paris (New York Times, 1940a). It
had also invaded and occupied the Netherlands,
where the Gestapo was rounding up ‘‘enemies
of Germa ny,’’ and of these ‘‘nearly all have faced
firing squads’’ (New York Times, 1940b). Germany
invaded and occupied Belgium, and was at war
with Britain.
Watson did nothing to reduce IBM’s involvement
in Germany, but he did return the medal he
received from Hitler, saying, ‘‘the present policies
of your government are contrary to the causes for
which I have been working and for which I received
the decoration’’ (New York Times, 1940c). As a
result, ‘‘congratulations swamped Watson’s office’’
(Maney, 2003: 220). But the Nazi party officials
responsible for awarding huge contracts to Deho-
mag were outraged. They believed Watson had
given in to pressure from the Jewish community
and to Jewish anti-German propaganda (New York
Times, 1940c; Rodgers, 1969). Incensed by Watson’s
insult to Hitler, Heidinger, and the other Dehomag
directors tried to unseat IBM headquarters’ repre-
sentative on the board, even though he controlled
85% of the shares.
Heidinger had always bristled under IBM’s
control and he threatened to sell his shares back
to IBM, which would destroy the illusion that
Germans owned Dehomag. Watson was in a
difficult position. Beatty (2001) captures one side
of this difficulty well:
You are Thomas Watson, the founder of IBM, and you face a
choice y You must know that the census and other work
your German branch has performed for the Nazis has been
used not just to count cars and cows but to identify
Jews y You have visited Germany; you were in Berlin in
July 1935, when Black Shirts rampaged through the streets
smashing the windows of Jewish stores, and forcing your
friends, the Wertheims, to sell their department store for
‘‘next to nothing’’ and escape to Sweden y Hitler has
invaded France y executives of your German subsidiary
want you to sell out to German principals. With Hitler
moving to occupy all of Europe, this is a chance for a clean
break. True, the United States is not yet in the war, but
Hitler’s bombs are falling on London.
Despite this, there were also pressures on Watson
to keep Dehomag operating in Germany. Even
though high-ranking Nazis wanted to cancel
Dehomag’s contracts and give them to a weaker
competitor, they had already invested a great deal
in the IBM punch card technology. ‘‘The Third
Reich found the [punch card] machine invaluable’’
(Spencer, 2001: 1558). IBM’s actions were legal
under US law, but Wats on still wanted to maintain
the illusion that Germans owned Dehomag; this
shielded IBM from criticism in the US and kept
Dehomag eligible for government contracts in
Germany. Royalty payments continued to flow
from Dehomag to IBM via Switzerland. The royal-
ties could dry up if Dehomag lost the inside track
with the Germans that Heidinger provided (Black,
2001). Looking back, one historian wrote in
Business Week that ‘‘Unless Watson was prepared
to write off his assets in Germanyy he had little
Table 1 Employees at dehomag
Year Dehomag
employees
IBM
employees
1930 298 6,346
1933 462 8,202
1935 1,119 8,654
1940 2,561 12,656
Source: IBM Deutschland (2005) and (IBM highlights).
IBM and Germany 1922–1941 McCormick and Spee
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choice but to put the best face on happenings there,
or to bite his tongue, and cul tivate good relations
with German leaders’’. (Hayes, 2001: 20)
Watson had to decide whether to ‘‘sell out or
fight to hold on to Dehomag’’ (Beatty, 2001). Or
perhaps do something entirely different.
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About the authors
Donald W. McCormick teaches at California State
University Northridge. He earned his Ph.D. at Case
Western Reserve University. His research focuses on
mindfulness in the workplace and classroom;
the use of e-learning to teach empathic listening;
and evidence-based approaches to management
education. He can be reached at dwm2@cwru.edu.
James C. Spee teaches at the University of Redlands
in Redlands, California. He earned his Ph.D. at The
Claremont Graduate University. His research
focuses on management education and develop-
ment, measurement of learning outcomes, and
aviation education. He teaches courses in strategy,
leadership, communication, and organizational
learning. He can be reached at james_spee@
redlands.edu.
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