IBM and the Holocaust

Was IBM simply an innocent pawn in Hitler’s mad schemes? Did they unknowingly make possible what was probably the greatest evil of the 20th century? That is unlikely. IBM employees were around constantly — the machines were only ever leased to governments, never sold, which means that IBM was always around to service, repair, upgrade, and in many cases operate the instruments of organizing death.

“Some of it IBM knew on a daily basis throughout the twelve-year Reich. The worst of it IBM preferred not to know — “don’t ask, don’t tell” was the order of the day. Yet IBM NY officials, and frequently [Thomas] Watson’s personal representatives, Harrison Chauncey and Werner Lier, were almost constantly in Berlin or Geneva, monitoring activities, ensuring that the parent company in New York was not cut out of any of the profits or business opportunities Nazism presented. When U.S. law made such direct contact illegal, IBM’s Swiss office became the nexus, providing the New York office continuous information and credible deniability.”

All through the book Edwin Black regularly quotes from the New York Times about events in Nazi Germany, thus making it clear that IBM officials based in New York had plenty of opportunity to learn about what was going on. These quotes alone are particularly enlightening because they reveal how much people in America generally were informed about the Holocaust even as it happened. IBM has advertised it as the “solutions” company, coming up with solutions to business and governmental problems by anticipating people’s needs. Black‘s book makes it seem like IBM is also the “Final Solutions” company, willing to make possible the murder of millions for a chance at a nice profit.

It would be wrong to pretend that the Holocaust wouldn’t have happened without IBM and Black doesn’t make such an argument, but it’s obvious that they made it far easier. It is because of IBM that so many were murdered so quickly and so efficiently. This is made clear in Black’s contrast of Holland, where there was "a well-entrenched Hollerith infrastructure," and France, where the "punch card infrastructure was in complete disarray.” The final numbers:

“Of an estimated 140,000 Dutch Jews, more than 107,000 were deported, and of those 102,000 were murdered — a death ratio of approximately 73 percent. Of the estimated 300,000 to 350,000 Jews in both German-occupied and Vichy zones, 85,000 were deported, of whom around 3,000 survived. The death ratio for France was approximately 25 percent.”

Of course, lots of corporations aided Nazi Germany in one fashion or another — Ford and General Motors, for example, made huge contributions to the Nazi war machine. Early on, this might even have been excusable. Corporations are not people, though, and those in charge now do not bear moral responsibility for what their predecessors did — assuming, of course, they own up to the misdeeds and offer apologies. It’s not IBM’s responsibility that owner Thomas Watson received the Merit Cross (Germany's second-highest honor), but they don’t seem to have the decency to be embarrassed by the fact that he earned it through service to the Third Reich.

The company created by Thomas J. Watson Sr. is a model of success in America — but it is a model fraught with danger if people don’t learn from their ethical mistakes, past and present. As for the past, people must learn not to subordinate corporate goals of profit to basic moral principles which should prevent one from assisting in mass slaughter, even tacitly by making it possible for the slaughter to proceed more efficiently.

As for the present, people must learn that an ethically mature corporation can’t exist so long as it denies or hides from its past. Without acknowledging earlier mistakes, it isn’t possible to understand how they occurred — and that, in turn, makes it far easier for them to occur again. Edwin Black’s book contains a number of important lessons along these lines, though he is a good enough writer not to beat readers over the head with it all. He explains the situation and allows you to arrive at your own conclusions as to the moral culpability of IBM, past and present.

« Back...