by Edwin Black
The Reichssippenamt promptly replied, “The primary function of the carding of church books is that it makes the research easier and at the same time preserves the church book…. if you follow my guidelines for an alphabetical name index, then use of the church books itself should be reduced by a factor of fifty.”72
Local NSDAP leadership in Dusseldorf debated whether cards should be filed phonetically or alphabetically. Either way, the office felt it wise to color code the cards. “Whenever full Jews or mixed Jews appear,” a local official wrote, “the former are marked by a red line, the latter by a blue line. However, both also receive a tab. Without the tab, the red and blue lines could otherwise not be easily identified after the sorting and filing has taken place.”73
Detailed instructions were developed for recording baptisms to make sure Jews could not hide their identity through conversion. “For every Jewish baptism,” the instructions read, “two double cards are to be filled out in addition to the normal card. (One for the Reichssippenamt and one for the file of Persons of Foreign Descent in the Berlin central office). With name changes (for example, the Jew Israel receives the family name Leberecht through baptism), the Christian or Jewish name is to be entered in parentheses in the field for family name.” The name was then coded R, and the Jew’s occupation and address were to be written on the reverse side.74
To help standardize methods, the Publishing House of Registry Office Matters published a guide entitled How Do I Card Church Books? 75
So precise were the tabulations that, in some areas, the authorities had identified people considered “sixteenth Jews.” The county of Bautzen, for example, summarized its extensive race tracking in a December 5, 1937 study, bragging that it had expanded the local Race Political Office from four employees to twenty-one during the previous two and a half years, with additional race experts deployed in local Party offices as well as women’s associations. “For the entire county area,” officials asserted, “there exists a file for Jews, Half-Jews, Quarter-Jews, Eighth-Jews, etc. with the following information: name, residence, occupation, date of birth, place of birth, citizenship, religion… spouse, children, ancestors.” As a result, local officials had identified 92 [full] Jews, 40 half-Jews, 19 quarter-Jews, 5 eighth-Jews, and 4 sixteenth-Jews “whose connections are continuously observed.”76
Race offices developed a mutual help network that constantly traded and updated their data. For example, Bautzen’s information collection was helped by registries from the State Health Offices; those offices were tabulated by Hollerith systems. In June 1938, 339 local labor offices took a so-called “labor census” of 22,300,000 German workers employed in approximately 247 occupational groups and subsets; the labor agencies also exchanged information assembled by Dehomag. Eichmann’s office Referat II 112, the Jewish Section of the Main Security Office, traded its synagogue and church sects lists with the Reichssippenamt ; both offices used Hollerith systems.77
The exponential growth of demand for Dehomag services spurred Watson to push his entire organization to manufacture more German machines faster. He even pushed his German managers at Dehomag to break production records. In mid-June, Watson agreed to add equipment and work space if the German subsidiary could double its output. IBM managers in Paris monitored Dehomag’s monthly progress, and asked for hard numbers. By the end of 1937, Rottke was able to report to IBM that monthly punch card production was at 74 million per month, production of horizontal sorters would double from 15 to 30 per month, tabulating machines would increase from 18 per month to 20 per month, multiplying punches would double from 5 to 10 per month, and counters would rise from 200 to 250 per month.78
To speed production, IBM approved the purchase of more machine tools for the assembly shops. Three inclinable presses, a jig bore, five 6- spindle drill presses, four vertical drill presses, five bench drills, and a variety of milling machines, saws, grinders, lathes, and screw presses.79
In early June 1938, IBM again pushed for greater productivity. Holt reminded IBM’s Paris-based European Factory Manager J G. Johnston, “Mr. Watson states that you told him last year… it should be possible to produce twice the number of parts [at Sindelfingen]… Mr. Rottke informs us that only 60% of the parts are now being manufactured at Sindelfingen.” Johnston traveled to Berlin immediately, and reported back in minute detail on proposed expansion plans, explaining on a veritable floor-by-floor basis which improvements had been approved by Watson, and which were still awaiting permission. Watson’s consent was required for even the smallest change in factory layout. For example, wrote Johnston, “if we should obtain the authorization of Mr. Watson for the shaded part of the plan for the new building, we could expect an increase of 3 x 462 sq. meters or a total of 1,386 sq. meters space… which increase would be sufficient for our needs for some length of time.”80
Johnston assured Holt, “The figure of 60 of the total output of parts now being manufactured in Sindelfingen will be greatly increased.” He stressed that many of the new machine tools were just being delivered and would be brought on line soon.81 More machines would be built—faster, better, cheaper.
Europe was hurtling toward all-out war. Dehomag would be ready.
* * *
CZECHOSLOVAKIA WAS NEXT.
Hitler, in 1938, demanded the largely Germanic Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia be handed to the Reich. Not only were there 3 million German-speaking residents in the Sudetenland, but Czechoslovakia possessed the raw materials that Hitler coveted. German generals had already drawn up invasion plans. But hoping to avert war, Britain and France, in tandem with Italy, negotiated with Hitler for a compromise.82
After dramatic ups and downs, the last-minute Munich Pact of September 30, 1938, ceded the Sudetenland to Germany as of the next day. The deal was called appeasement and was foisted upon Czechoslovakia by the European powers without regard for the Czech nation.83
On October 1, 1938, German forces moved in according to a prearranged takeover schedule. Within hours of entering any town, it was transformed. Streets and buildings were bedecked with Nazi bunting and swastika flags. For months, highly organized Sudeten Nazis functioned as a vanguard for the oppression to come, burning Jewish homes and boycotting Jewish stores. Now they ensured that Jewish shops were smeared with white paint.84 No one doubted what would come next.
By October 2, thousands of Jews flooded across the new border by car, train, and on foot into what remained of Czechoslovakia.85
Jews remaining behind found themselves identified, in spite of their highly assimilated Czech national character. Nazi contingents would systematically appear on their streets, drag families from their homes, herd them into trucks, and either deliver them to concentration camps or dump them penniless on the border with remnant Czechoslovakia. Many women and children, already beaten and bloody, were forced to cross the frontier crawling on their hands and knees, some on their bellies. Soon, their overwhelming numbers—as many as 40,000 had either fled or been expelled—were too much for the Czechs. Nor were the Czechs willing to provoke the Germans by seeming to create a refuge for deported Jews. The Czechs refused them entry.86
Ousted from the Sudetenland, and barred from the reduced Czechoslovakia, thousands of expelled Jews were now stranded in slender tracts of no-man’s land between border crossings. Dispossessed of everything, hundreds dwelled in roadside ditches, completely exposed to the elements without food, water, sanitation, or an understanding of how they had been identified or why they were suffering this fate. South of Bruenn, 150 huddled beneath hedges. Near Kostitz: 52 people. Outside Reigern: 51 people. Food shipments sent by relief committees were blocked by Czech guards, German soldiers, or Party stalwarts. Then came rains to magnify their misery and muddy their nightmare.87
The agony of these ditch people became an on-going spectacle for the world’s media. They survived from moment to moment only on the morsels of food thrown in pity by passersby transiting the borders and disregarding prohibitions on aid. When the trappe
d Jews were finally forced back to the German side, vicious mobs of jeering Nazis brutalized them.88
But the Sudetenland was not enough for Hitler. In early 1939, the Third Reich pressured Czechoslovakia to commence its own anti-Jewish ousters, including those Jews who had fled Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland. Czechoslovakia complied, hoping to forestall an invasion. At 6 A.M. on March 15, 1939, the Reich invaded anyway. German troops pushed into all of Moravia and Bohemia. Hitler declared the whole of Czechoslovakia a Reich Protectorate under the iron-handed rule of appointed Governors. Now all of Czech Jewry would be decimated. A staccato of anti-Semitic registrations, expulsions, and confiscations soon descended upon all of what was once known as Czechoslovakia.89
Within days, newspapers were reporting the same sorrowful fate for Czech Jewry as experienced elsewhere. Doctors and merchants were expelled from their posts and professional associations. Synagogues were burned. Signs forbidding Jews at cafes and other stores appeared.90
The suicides began. Thirty per day in Prague. In Chicago, a number of Czech refugees who had been admitted on temporary visas formed a “suicide colony.” One member of the colony was Mrs. Karel Langer, who ended her family’s life in the Congress Hotel. First she hurled her two young boys, six and four years of age, out of the window of the thirteenth floor. She leapt after them just seconds later. Police recovered all three bodies from the Michigan Avenue sidewalk.91
Registration of property and family members was extended not only to those who outwardly practiced Judaism, but those defined by the Nuremberg Laws as having three and in some cases, two, Jewish grandparents. An estimated 200,000 would be involved.92
IBM was already in Czechoslovakia. Shortly after Hitler came to power, IBM NY had established a service bureau in Prague. The first school for Czech salesmen was opened in 1935 about the time the Nuremberg Laws were passed. In November 1936, Watson approved a card printing plant in a small town near Prague, where sixteen printers and two cutting machines were installed. Some months later, as IBM ramped up operations, the company protested when Czech Customs changed the company’s tariff classification from simplistic mechanical punches to statistical machines.93
In 1937, Georg Schneider was hired as an additional salesman for Prague. Within about a year, Schneider was transferred to Dehomag in Berlin “as a salesman and studying the German organization.” He met Watson in Berlin, as well as the company’s leading Swiss-based supervisors. By that time, Czechoslovakian State Railways was utilizing 52.2 million punch cards per year. In 1939, IBM Geneva and Dehomag agreed that Schneider should return to Prague, where about sixty employees worked, as the new co-manager working with Director Emil Kuzcek. At about that time, the Reich opened the Statistical Office for the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, located in Prague. IBM did not list itself in Czech commercial registries as owning its own subsidiary. Instead, the subsidiary’s 200,000 Korunas value was held 102,000 by IBM’s attorney in Prague, Stefan Schmid, and 98,000 by IBM’s European General Manager John Holt, both men acting as nominees for IBM NY.94
For IBM, the question was not how deeply Dehomag would control all Hollerith activity in Czechoslovakia, but once again, who would share in the profit. In the first days of 1939, after Germany’s takeover of the Sudetenland, and at the height of the Reich’s threats to take over the rest of Czechoslovakia, IBM worried about the bonus question with Heidinger, Rottke, and Hummel.
On January 11, 1939, Watson’s personal emissary, Harrison Chauncey, drafted a letter for European Manager Holt in Geneva, reviewing how the oral arrangement with Dehomag for “new territories” might work once Czechoslovakia was included. So there was no mistake, Chauncey recited the language from the oral arrangement. “‘In case the IBM should voluntarily transfer the working of territories outside of Germany to the Dehomag,’” Chauncey quoted, “‘we also agree that, upon the request of the IBM, we can be totally or partly excluded from the results of the business transactions… as they have been agreed upon in the form of a bonus in the loan agreements.’”95
Then Chauncey posited the question: “In the case of Austria and Czechoslovakia, should determination be made whether or not at this time as to whether Rottke and Hummel should receive the benefits from any business within these two countries.”96
In an effort to create deniability about the decision, Chauncey added, “under present circumstances it might be unwise for the IBM to make the determination.” Written by hand, the sentence appended, “but Dehomag should when time is proper.” Thus, IBM NY could claim that Czech activity was undertaken at Dehomag’s sole decision—even though no such activity could take place without Watson’s permission.97
Addressing the time constraints, Chauncey wrote, “You might consider whether Dehomag should have an understanding immediately, because, of course, there will also be involved a transfer of the assets in Austria and Czechoslovakia.”98 Chauncey’s letter did not refer to “the Sudetenland,” which had already been swept into the Reich, but “Czechoslovakia “; although Czechoslovakia was being daily threatened with forcible annexation, Germany was still weeks away from its invasion.
A senior IBM executive, John G. Phillips, scribbled on the draft, “have Chauncey see me.” On January 17, 1939, the heavily edited letter to Holt was formally typed on letterhead and again submitted to senior executives for review. Still maintaining deniability, the revised version suggested, “Under present circumstances, we wonder whether it would be unwise for IBM to make the determination relating to territory and products. We might consider whether it would be more proper to have Rottke and Hummel write Dehomag setting forth substantially the same thing as in the letter to Mr. Gubelman…. You might consider whether Dehomag should have an understanding immediately, because, of course, there will also be involved a transfer of the assets in Austria and Czechoslovakia.”99
But Chauncey’s letter still seemed too sensitive for senior IBM executives. Newspaper headlines and newsreels were blasting Germany daily for the Czech situation. After ten days, the letter was still not approved, and finally on January 27, Chauncey was instructed by Phillips, “suggest we hold on this for the present.”100
Dehomag lost no time in proceeding in Czechoslovakia—with or without settling the question of bonuses for Czech activity. But even if Rottke and Hummel were willing to wait for a decision on bonuses, Heidinger was not. As Germany prepared to launch an invasion against Czechoslovakia, Heidinger unleashed his own battle plan to secure a share in the profit the IBM organization expected in newly conquered territories.
* * *
GERMANY WAS facing economic collapse and began clamping down on taxpayers and profiteers. Watson had refused to declare a profit since 1934, despite record multi-million mark earnings. Tax authorities reviewed RM 180,000 in IBM advances and loans to Heidinger in lieu of actual profit dividends. Heidinger’s money was declared a bonus no matter how it was disguised—and he was ordered to pay RM 90,000 in taxes. On January 20, 1938, Heidinger wrote to IBM’s Holt in Geneva complaining that no matter what IBM called it, “The German government considers it as a dividend and I have to pay the [income] taxes.” The levy was in addition to his normal income taxes. “That is impossible for me,” he conceded. “I would have to burden my properties with a mortgage or to change my standard of life.”101
Heidinger offered IBM an ultimatum: either declare a bona fide profit and pay a dividend for prior years that would net him RM 250,000—or he would exercise an option requiring IBM to buy back his shares in the company. For now, he was offering just one of his ten shares. He would still retain 9 percent. “Find out which… Mr. Watson would prefer,” Heidinger asked.102
Alarms went off in Geneva, Paris, and New York. IBM had no objection to a stock buy-back. But everyone understood that if Heidinger reduced his holdings below 10 percent that might cause Nazi authorities to re-examine the Aryan nature of Dehomag. The company could lose the ability to use “Deutsche” in its name, and might even be taken over by kommissars
.103 Moreover, in Germany’s current state of war preparedness, punch card technology overseers in the Ministry of War could even decree a takeover.
Letters flew across the Atlantic as IBM tried to plan its next move. IBM’s Geneva Controller J. C. Milner coolly informed Rottke that the company had no difficulty declaring a dividend, but German law limited such distributions to 6 or 8 percent—and that amount would not be much more than monies already advanced. As for Heidinger selling back his stock, Milner curtly wrote, “we can take no decision on this.” Rottke wrote back, encouraging New York to pay Heidinger. Stalling for time, Milner replied, “it will not be possible to come to a final decision… until such time as I receive a reply from Head Office.”104
Rottke’s reply was explicit: “I would gather… the IBM does not wish to purchase this interest [Heidinger’s stock]… inasmuch as a change of German interests into foreign hands would be a disadvantage at the present time. However, something will have to be done, because Heidinger needs money and can or will obtain it by other means; nobody will be able to legally prevent him from selling.”105
Throughout spring 1938, more letters, conferences, and debates streamed between IBM offices on both sides of the ocean. Watson personally called for written recommendations and proposed agreements from special advisors, accountants, and attorneys both in and out of Germany. In some cases, one translation wasn’t enough for Watson. The whole dispute was all coming at a difficult time in view of Dehomag’s expansion plans. Austria had just been annexed, and Germany was openly planning the takeover of Czecho slovakia. Even as Watson was battling Heidinger’s demand for bonuses, he was cautiously negotiating the nature and bonuses of Dehomag’s expansion into “new territories,” such as Austria and Czechoslovakia.106
