IBM and the Holocaust (78 page)

All the facts surrounding IBM's cloudy dealings in Geneva will probably never come to light, but this much became clear at the time: once the war ended, Lier needed to disappear from Geneva in a hurry. Lier had no choice. He could only escape by traveling through France. So at the end of 1944, just after French intelligence arrested CEC managers, Lier tried to arrange his immediate departure from Europe by applying for a French travel visa at the French Consulate in Geneva.
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But on January 3, the French Foreign Ministry instructed the French Consulate to deny Lier's visa request, thus keeping him where he was. The French Consulate took its time informing Lier, and only confirmed the denial on January 12, 1945.
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Moreover, even if Lier could leave Switzerland, commercial officers at the American Legation in Bern were reluctant to grant him a temporary visa to enter the United States on the grounds his entry might be "detrimental to the public safety." They expressed themselves in an exchange of correspondence on January 16. But several days later, senior diplomats intervened. American Consul Paul Squire was told in a letter by legation officer J. Klahr Huddle. "Supplementing my letter," wrote Huddle, "I now have to inform you that the files in the case of Werner C. Lier have been carefully examined by the interested officers of this Legation. After careful consideration of the case, it is our considered opinion that Mr. Lier's entry into the United States on a temporary visitor's visa would not prove 'detrimental to the public safety,' and it is believed that in your discretion you may act accordingly with respect to Mr. Lier's application for a visa."
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However, even when U.S. officials agreed to issue a visa, Lier still could not enter French territory to effect his exit from Europe and travel to America. Yet sometime in the first two weeks of February 1945, Lier did indeed suddenly disappear.
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Camille Delcour, a longtime French IBM director, was astonished when he reported to the Paris subsidiary on February 12. He penned a message.

On coming to the IBM office on Monday morning, February 12, a notice was pinned on the notice board. This notice informed us that Mr. Lier was on his way to the States, "a rapid means of transportation necessitating a hurried departure having been placed at my disposal" and that he regretted not having the opportunity to take leave of the staff.

What is surprising to us is not only his strange way of eloping, but how he has found his ways and means to cross France since we know for a definite fact that the French transit visa for which he applied . . . was refused to him on January 12, 1945.

It seems that the invitation for him to go over to the States emanates from Mr. Schotte. Whether this invitation was extended without a direct provocation by Lier is uncertain. I am cabling Mr. Watson warning him not to be guided by anything Lier may say before a responsible N.Y. official has investigated the whole Geneva situation.

Camille Delcour
IBM
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No one could understand how Lier managed to escape. As late as summer 1945, Bern Commercial Attache Reagan had written to the French Embassy reviewing the French Foreign Ministry's decision to deny Lier the right to enter their territory. "We have since learned," informed Reagan, "that Mr. Lier successfully reached the United States and we would like to know how he could have traveled through France without the necessary visa. If you have information about this subject, I would be grateful if you would inform me."
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But it should have been plain to consular officials in Bern. The man in Switzerland who intervened for Lier was America's Military Attache, Brig. Gen. Barnwell Legge, an experienced hand at smuggling people into and out of Switzerland. Consular officials had already explained in a prior letter that General Legge was one of two senior foreign service officers who had proffered his written justification for allowing Lier into the United States. The other was the Consul General himself, a man who had transferred in from the German Embassy in Berlin. That new Consul General was Sam Woods—the same Sam Woods who helped IBM during Dehomag's revolt, and who later helped Lier move Holleriths from Poland to Romania.
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For Werner C. Lier and IBM Geneva, the war was over.

XV THE SPOILS OF GENOCIDE, II

WHEN WORLD WAR II ENDED IN EUROPE, THE CONTINENT
was shattered and in disarray. Millions of all faiths and nationalities were dead. For millions more—displaced persons, tattered victims, and fatigued combatants—it would be years before they could recover.

Yet, Dehomag emerged from the Hitler years with relatively little damage and virtually ready to resume business as usual. Its machines had been salvaged, its profits preserved, and its corporate value protected. Hence, when the war ended, IBM NY was able to recapture its problematic but valuable German subsidiary, recover its machines, and assimilate all the profits.

As early as December 1943, the United States government concluded that Hitler's Holleriths were strategic machines to save, not destroy. Dehomag's equipment held the keys to a smooth military occupation of Germany and the other Axis territories. By June 1944, Carter's investigative reports on IBM and Dehomag had been adapted into a confidential War Department Pamphlet, 31-123, entitled
Civil Affairs Guide: Preservation and Use of Key Records in Germany.
Over several dozen pages, key government and Party offices were listed by street address with a description of their punch card machines and data. On page 18, the Ministry of Labor entry declared, "Their records are of the utmost importance as they are the means by which the Germans controlled and shifted manpower, and should therefore be a valuable source of information for the occupying authorities. On pages 19-20, the Ministry of Transportation entry explained, "The up-to-date reports disclose the location and number of trains available in each territory, traffic density, tonnage over a particular line, type of cars used, type of materials shipped. . . . As the smooth running of the railroad system is of primary importance . . . in administering the occupied territory, all records should be placed under military custody."
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The War Department's
Civil Affairs Guide
citation on page 21 for Police Records specified, "records on aliens and Jews are kept by a special department of the police, the
Fremdenpolizei
(alien police). . . . By an elaborate technique, that is kept rigorously up to date, the police are enabled to trace the movements of practically everyone in the country." On page 58, in the "Gestapo Card Index," section subsection B was entitled "Register of Inmates of Concentration Camps." It confirmed: "The Gestapo Directorates and Offices keep the register of inmates of concentration camps in the areas under their jurisdiction. Copies are to be found in the concentration camps themselves."
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Appendix B of the
Civil Affairs Guide
identified the Dehomag factories and summarized the operational basics of Hollerith tabulators, sorters, verifiers, and multipliers.
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British intelligence was also keen to maintain German Holleriths intact to facilitate the occupation. A British paper reviewing the Reich Statistical Office asserted, "If the German statistical staffs at the Ministry of Economics and at subordinate levels continue to function, it will not require a great number of people to take charge. If, however, the German system . . . has been disrupted and the records sabotaged, it would be a long and arduous, though necessary, task to reconstitute it."
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German forces were just as eager to safeguard their IBM equipment, albeit for their own reasons. As the Allies liberated territories from the east and west, precious machines were moved behind defensible lines for the Reich's continued use. As late as 1945,
der Fuhrer
himself had issued a decree placing a new emphasis on punch card technology for registering and tracking all Germans needed for the defense of the Reich. He appointed Karl-Hermann Frank, former military governor of occupied Czechoslovakia as a new plenipotentiary for punch card registration. Frank would be able to supercede the authority of the
Maschinelles Berichtwesen (MB),
the
Zentral
Institut,
and all other party and state offices. "In this capacity, he has to answer to me personally," declared Hitler.
Der Fuhrer
added that the committee advising Frank would be chaired by Rudolf Schmeer, the official who spoke for the Party at the original 1934 opening of Dehomag's Lichterfelde factory. Schmeer still enjoyed a commanding role at the
MB.
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More than just the strategic need to evacuate the equipment to safer ground, Hitler's Holleriths constituted damning evidence. Hence, when concentration camps were abandoned, the machines were moved and files destroyed to obliterate the record of war crimes. In many cases, Hollerith devices from various Reich sites were not redeployed, but simply hidden to keep them from Allied confiscation. However, as the Allies closed in on Berlin, military intelligence tracked many of the machines.
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A major
MB
punching operation of almost 100 Hollerith machines at its Wendisch-Reitz office was shifted in part to Otto's Hotel, while its tabulators were installed at a nearby castle, and the remaining devices were shipped by rail to Neudientendorf for reassembly in the basement of the Riesbeck brewery. Allied forces arrived at the brewery before the machines could be activated. Machines from Krakow and Posen were also moved to sites in Neudietendorf. Tabulators and sorters in Koenigsberg were thought to have been loaded onto a boat that escaped before Allied armies arrived. Holleriths at Hannover were moved to Elze. Nuremberg machines were relocated to Brauhaus Street in Ansbach. Tabulator experts at Kassel shipped their gear to Oberaula, but first removed several small components, rendering them inoperative if Allied forces discovered the systems.
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With both sides trying to protect the Holleriths, the evidence on exactly where and how thousands of machines were used was all but obscured. This was particularly the case in concentration camps where the Hollerith Departments were generally dismantled before liberators arrived, even if some of the cards, decoding keys, and telltale Hollerith transfer paper were left behind.
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Thus, almost as soon as Germany capitulated, IBM could begin the proc ess of recovering its valuable equipment from frequently innocuous sites.

IBM's money was protected with equal fervor. During the war, the Reich needed IBM subsidiaries in Nazi Europe to continue operating in a reliable, profitable mode. At first, the Reich appointed a temporary enemy property custodian, Dr. Kottgen. He simply re-appointed IBM's most trusted managers in virtually all the territories.
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By 1943, however, the Reich Economics Ministry had designated Hermann B. Fellinger as custodian over Dehomag. Fellinger was one of Germany's most reliable and commercially adept
Kommissars.
In WWI, he had served as the chief
Kommissar
overseeing all other custodians of enemy property. In France, where Westerholt officiated as preliminary custodian at CEC, Fellinger was empowered to supersede and ultimately replace him. Ultimately, Fellinger's authority extended not only to Dehomag, but also to IBM companies in Norway, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and France. Fellinger also coordinated closely with a second custodian, H. Garbrecht, who oversaw the IBM operating units in Belgium and Holland, and with Rome's appointed official at Watson Italiana. Real estate attorney Oskar Mohring was named custodian for IBM's property and other commercial interests in Nazi Europe.
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On assuming his position, Fellinger immediately re-designated IBM's best managers to keep the subsidiaries productive and profitable. He only excised one IBM personality: Dehomag Chairman Willy Heidinger. A four-man Advisory Committee, including Veesenmayer, quickly replaced Dehomag's Board of Directors. That outraged the combative Heidinger who saw his power suddenly neutralized. On June 18, 1943, Heidinger wrote a long, bitter defense of his involvement with the company, going back to its inception in 1910. His diatribe railed that Watson's interference had been the cause of all problems. Dehomag was German not American, he argued, and should not be administered for IBM's benefit, but instead completely Aryanized.
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"Contrary to what has on occasion been alleged," protested Heidinger, "it was, therefore, not a case of us Germans participating in an American enterprise, but rather of Americans participating in a German enterprise that I created . . . I have been blamed for many other things, in an unfounded and partly contradictory manner. Among other things, I was told I was merely a figurehead for the Americans; on the other hand, it was not very nice of me to act so aggressively towards the Americans now that I had waxed rich because of them. The opposite is true: It is not a case of my having become wealthy because of the Americans, but rather of the Americans having become wealthy because of me."
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Further undercutting him, Fellinger ruled that the company was no longer obligated to re-purchase Heidinger's stock. Heidinger would have undoubtedly pressed claims against Fellinger and done his utmost to regain control of Dehomag. But Heidinger's battle came to an end several months after his angry apologia to Fellinger. Deteriorating health eventually won out over the indomitable Dehomag founder. In 1944, Heidinger died of natural causes.
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