IBM and the Holocaust

by Edwin Black

  9. Handwritten tally, Buchenwald Abteilung Hollerith, August 23, 1944, Kommando 68, Blatt 66-73, International Tracing Service of the Red Cross Archive, in Buchenwald Archive 56-2-31; handwritten Prisoner Roster, Buchenwald Abteilung Hollerith, circa August 23, 1944, Kommando 68, Blatt 66-73, International Tracing Service of the Red Cross Archive, in Buchenwald Archive 56-2-31; Handwritten tally, Buchenwald Abteilung Hollerith, August 27, 1944, Kommando 68, Blatt 66-73, International Tracing Service of the Red Cross Archive, in Buchenwald Archive 56-2-31; Handwritten tally, Buchenwald Abteilung Hollerith, August 31, 1944, Kommando 68, Blatt 66-73, International Tracing Service of the Red Cross Archive, in Buchenwald Archive 56-2-31.

  10. Memo, Arbeitseinsatz Ravensbruck to Kommandantur—Arbeitseinsatz Buchenwald, November 17, 1944, International Tracing Service of the Red Cross Archive, in Buchenwald Archive 63-0-4.

  11. Memo, WVHA Amt D-II to Kommandantur—Buchenwald, January 25, 1945, Buchenwald Archive, 46-1-19.

  12. Handwritten tally, Buchenwald Abteilung Hollerith, February 2, 1945, Kommando 68, Blatt 66-73, International Tracing Service of the Red Cross Archive, in Buchenwald Archive 56-2-31; Typed tally, Buchenwald Abteilung Hollerith, February 13, 1945, Kommando 68, Blatt 66-73, International Tracing Service of the Red Cross Archive, in Buchenwald Archive 56-2-31.

  13. Anderungliste 19 for Week 51, from Sachsenhausen to Oranienburg, December 17-23, 1944, Russian State Military Archive, FOND 1367/1/196, in Sachsenhausen Archive D1A, vol. 195, p. 56 back. Anderungliste unnumbered for Week 49, from Gross-Rosen to Oranienburg, November 26-December 3, 1944, Russian State Military Archive, FOND 1367/1/196, in Sachsenhausen Archive D1A, vol. 195, p. 57 front.

  14. Anderungliste 19 for Week 51, from Sachsenhausen to Oranienburg, December 17-23, 1944, Russian State Military Archive, FOND 1367/1/196, in Sachsenhausen Archive D1A, vol. 195, p. 56 back. Anderungliste unnumbered for Week 49, from Gross-Rosen to Oranienburg, November 26-December 3, 1944, Russian State Military Archive, FOND 1367/1/196, in Sachsenhausen Archive D1A, vol. 195, p.57 front.

  15. Commemorative Program, “Luncheon in Honor of Thomas J Watson,” circa 1937, author’s archive.

  16. Author Conversations with Heidingers, March 26-27, 2001.

  17. Letter, Georg Schneider to T.J. Watson, July 4, 1945, IBM Files.

  18. Letter, Georg Schneider to T.J. Watson, July 4, 1945, IBM Files.

  19. Author Conversation with Robert Carmille, February 25, 2001.

  20. Author Conversation with Robert Carmille, February 25, 2001.

  21. Author Conversation with Robert Carmille, February 25, 2001.

  22. Author Conversation with Robert Carmille, February 25, 2001.

  23. CEC Lyon Newsletter, Carmille Archive.

  24. Unprocessed materials, Jacquey Archive.

  25. Stutthof Concentration Camp Commandant’s Order 51, August 3, 1944, and Commandant’s Order 71, October 22, 1944, Stutthof Archives.

  26. Marek Orski, Organizacja dyspozycji sily roboczej i zatrudnienia wie zniow w okresie 7 stycznia 1942-25 stycznia 1945, [in:] Stutthof, Hitlerowski oboz koncentracyjny, Warszawa 1988, pp. 232-233; also see Marek Orski, Niewolnicza praca wie zniow obozu koncentracyjnego Stutthof w latach 1939-1945, Gdansk 1999, pp. 30-31, 127-128; Stutthof State Museum Archives, sign. I-IIIA-15, and Information and Research Bureau of the Polish Red Cross Archive’s Chief Board, Stutthof Hollerith Cards; also see Stutthof Abteilung Hollerith at www.stutthof.prv.pl.

  27. Eyewitness Testimony of Krzysztof Dunin-Wa

  28. Author Conversation with Leon Krzemieniecki, August 18, 2001.

  29. Author Conversation with Leon Krzemieniecki, August 18, 2001.

  30. Author Conversation with Leon Krzemieniecki, August 18, 2001.

  31. Author Conversation with Leon Krzemieniecki, August 18, 2001.

  32. Report of the Statistics Office of the General Government concerning its development and work since its establishment,” October 5, 1942, T-84 NA Frames 1443744-1443809.

  33. Author Conversation with Leon Krzemieniecki, August 18, 2001.

  34. Author Conversation with Leon Krzemieniecki, August 18, 2001.

  35. “Report of the Statistics Office of the General Government concerning its development and work since its establishment,” November 30, 1941, T-84 NA Frames 1443744-1443809.

  36. “Report of the Statistics Office of the General Government concerning its development and work since its establishment,” November 30, 1941, T-84 NA Frames 1443744-1443809.

  37. “Report of the Statistics Office of the General Government concerning its development and work since its establishment,” November 30, 1941, T-84 NA Frames 1443744-1443809.

  38. “Report of the Statistics Office of the General Government concerning its development and work since its establishment,” November 30, 1941, T-84 NA Frames 1443744-1443809.

  39. “Report of the Statistics Office of the General Government concerning its development and work since its establishment,” November 30, 1941, T-84 NA Frames 1443744-1443809.

  40. “Report of the Statistics Office of the General Government concerning its development and work since its establishment,” November 30, 1941, T-84 NA Frames 1443744-1443809.

  41. “Report of the Statistics Office of the General Government concerning its development and work since its establishment,” November 30, 1941, T-84 NA Frames 1443744-1443809.

  MAJOR SOURCES

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  The Holocaust literature is virtually devoid of references to Hollerith technology with several notable exceptions. Although many of these works could only raise questions about the larger picture, most of them represented early attempts to learn the truth. During my research, I benefited from all these preliminary efforts.

  The first of these is Die restlose Erfassung: Volkszahlen, Identifizieren, Aussondern im Nationalsozialismus, by Gotz Aly and Karl Heinz Roth, published in 1984 as a well-researched study arguing against registration policies in modern Germany. In the process, Aly and Roth traced numerous forms of Nazi registration and statistical abuses, including those undertaken with Hollerith machines.

  In the 1990s, there were four more references. When the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum acquired its Hollerith machine, its census uses were mentioned in the museum’s 1993 illustrated catalog, The World Must Know. Thereafter, three articles appeared in scholarly journals far from the Holocaust mainstream. The first was the excellent article “Locating the Victim: An Overview of Census-Taking, Tabulation Technology, and Persecution in Nazi Germany,” by David Martin Luebke and Sybil Milton, which appeared in the Annals of the History of Computing, published by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Three years later, an attempt at rebuttal appeared in the Annals of the History of Computing, authored by Friedrich Kistermann, a retired IBM engineer and tabulator enthusiast; his work was entitled “Locating the Victims: The Nonrole of Punched Card Technology and Census Work.”

  The third article was William Seltzer’s landmark work of scholarship entitled “Population Statistics, the Holocaust, and the Nuremberg Trials” in the September 1998 edition of Population Development and Review. Seltzer, a former United Nations statistical and census expert, assembled an impressive list of secondary references to census and registration during the Holocaust.

  In 1997, Andreas Baumgartner offered a fleeting reference to Hollerith in a little known Austrian volume entitled Die vergessenen Frauen von Mauthausen: Die weiblichen Haftlinge des Konzentrationslagers Mauthausen und ihre Geschichte.

  During my research, I consulted hundreds of books, articles, monographs, pamphlets, jubilee editions and other secondary materials, both in paper form and electronically. I cannot list them all, but the following identifies some of the more salient items.

  Adler, Jacques. The Jews of Paris and the Final Solution: Communal Response and Internal Conflicts, 1940-1944. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.

  Aly, Gotz and Karl Heinz Roth. Die restlose Erfassung: Volkszahlen, Identifizieren, Auss
ondern im Nationalsozialismus. Berlin: Rotbuch Verlag, 1984.

  Aly, Gotz, Peter Chroust, and Christian Pross. Cleansing the Fatherland. Translated by Belinda Cooper. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994.

  Arad, Yitzhak, Israel Gutman, and Abraham Margaliot, eds. Documents on the Holocaust: Selected Sources on the Destruction of the Jews of Germany, and Austria, Poland, and the Soviet Union. Translated by Lea Ben Dor. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1981; Bison Books, 1999.

  Arendt, Hannah. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. New York: Viking Penguin, Inc., 1963; Penguin Books, 1965.

  Armanski, Gerhard. Maschinen des Terrors: Das Lager (KZ und GULAG) in der Moderne. Munster: Verlag Westfalisches Dampfboot, 1993.

  Austrian, Geoffrey D. Herman Hollerith: Forgotten Giant of Information Processing. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982.

  Baumgartner, Andreas. Die vergessenen Frauen von Mauthausen: Die weiblichen Haftlinge des Konzentrationslagers Mauthausen und ihre Geschichte. Wien: Verlag Osterreich, 1997.

  Barker, Kenneth, ed. The NIV Study Bible. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1995.

  Belden, Thomas Graham and Marva Robins Belden. The Lengthening Shadow: The Life of Thomas J. Watson. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1962.

  Berenbaum, Michael. The World Must Know. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1993.

  Black, Edwin. The Transfer Agreement: The Dramatic Story of the Pact Between the Third Reich and Jewish Palestine. New York: Macmillan, 1984; Chicago: Dialog Press, 1999.

  Borkin, Joseph. The Crime and Punishment of I.G. Farben. New York: The Free Press, 1978.

  Bradsher, Greg, comp. Holocaust-Era Assets: A Finding Aid to Records at the National Archives at College Park, Maryland. National Archives and Records Administration, 1999.

  Breitman, Richard. Official Secrets: What the Nazis Planned, What the British and Americans Knew. New York: Hill and Wang, 1998.

  Browning, Christopher R. The Path to Genocide: Essays on Launching the Final Solution. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

  Brynen, Rex. Sanctuary and Survival: The PLO in Lebanon. Boulder: Westview Press, 1990.

  Burleigh, Michael. Death and Deliverance: ‘Euthanasia’ in Germany,’ 1900-1945. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

  Carmille, Robert. Des Apparences A La Realite: Mise au Point, Le “Fichier Juif “: Rapport de la Commission presidee par Rene Remond au Premier Ministre, 1996.

  Centre Historique des Archives Nationales. Inventaire des Archives du Commissariat General aux Questions Juives et du Service de Restitution des Biens des Victimes des Lois et Mesures de Spoliation. Paris: Centre Historique des Archives Nationales, 1998.

  Choldin, Harvey M. Looking for the Last Percent: The Controversy Over Census Undercounts. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1994.

  Clements, Bruce. From Ice Set Free: The Story of Otto Kiep. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1972.

  Connolly, James. History of Computing in Europe. IBM World Trade Corporation, circa 1967.

  Cortada, James W. Before the Computer: IBM, NCR, Burroughs, and Remington Rand and the Industry They Created, 1865-1956. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993.

  Dassbach, Carl H. A. Global Enterprises and the World Economy: Ford, General Motors, and IBM, the Emergence of the Transnational Enterprise. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1989.

  De Jong, L. Het Koninkrijk in de Tweede Wereldoorlog, Vol. 3: Mai 1940,’s Gravenhage, 1970.

  De Jong, L. Holland Fights the Nazis. London: Lindsay Drummon.

  Encyclopaedia Judaica. Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House, 1972.

  van den Ende, Jan, Knopen, kaarten en chips: De geschiedenis van de automatesiering bij het Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, Amsterdam, 1991.

  Engelbourg, Saul. International Business Machines: A Business History. Arno Press, 1976.

  Erwich, B. and J.G.S.J. van Maarseveen, eds., Een eeuw statistieken: Historisch-Methodologische schetsen van de Nederlandse officiele statistieken in de Twentigste eeuw, Amsterdam, 1999.

  Fein, Helen. Accounting for Genocide: National Responses and Jewish Victimization During the Holocaust. New York: The Free Press, 1979.

  Ferencz, Benjamin B. Less Than Slaves: Jewish Forced Labor and the Quest for Compensation. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979.

  Foy, Nancy. The Sun Never Sets on IBM. New York: William Morrow & Company, Inc., 1975.

  Flint, Charles R. Memories of an Active Life: Men, and Ships, and Sealing Wax. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1923.

  Friedlander, Henry. The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1995.

  Friedlander, Saul. Nazi Germany and the Jews. Volume 1: The Years of Persecution. New York: HarperCollins, 1997.

  Garr, Doug. Lou Gerstner and the Business Turnaround of the Decade. New York: HarperCollins, 1999.

  Gilbert, Martin. The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe During the Second World War. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1985.

  Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah. Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1996; Vintage Books, 1997.

  Gutman, Israel. Resistance: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1994.

  Gutman, Yisrael and Michael Berenbaum, eds. Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1994; published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C.

  Haft, Cynthia J. The Bargain and the Bridle: The General Union of the Israelites of France, 1941-1944. Chicago: Dialog Press, 1983.

  Herzberg, Abel J. Between Two Streams: A Diary from Bergen-Belsen. Translated by Jack Santcross. New York: I.B. Tauris,

  Hilberg, Raul, ed. Documents of Destruction: Germany and Jewry 1933-1945. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, Inc., 1971.

  Hilberg, Raul. The Destruction of the European Jews. New York: Quadrangle Books, Inc., 1961; Harper Colophon Books, 1979;

  Hilberg, Raul, Stanislaw Staron, and Josef Kermisz, eds. The Warsaw Diary of Adam Czerniakow: Prelude to Doom. Translated by Stanislaw Staron and the staff of Yad Vashem. New York: Stein and Day, 1979.

  Hirschfeld, Gerhard. Nazi Rule and Dutch Collaboration: The Netherlands Under German Occupation, 1940-1945. Translated by Louise Willmot. New York: Berg, 1988.

  Hoess, Rudolf. Commandant of Auschwitz: The Autobiography of Rudolf Hoess. Translated by Constantine FitzGibbon. New York: Popular Library, 1959.

  Ioanid, Radu. The Holocaust in Romania: The Destruction of Jews and Gypsies Under the Antonescu Regime, 1940-1944. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2000.

  Jagendorf, Siegried. Jagendorf’s Foundry: A Memoir of the Romanian Holocaust, 1941-1944. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.

  Kahn, Annette. Le Fichier. Paris: Robert Laffont, S.A., 1993.

  Katsh, Abraham I., ed. and translator. Scroll of Agony: The Warsaw Diary of Chaim A. Kaplan. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1965.

  Katsh, Abraham I., ed. and translator. The Warsaw Diary of Chaim A. Kaplan. New York: Collier Books, 1973.

  Kermish, Joseph, ed. To Live With Honor and Die With Honor: Selected Documents from the Warsaw Ghetto Underground Archives “O.S.” [“Oneg Shabbath”]. Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1986.

  Klee, Ernst. “Euthanasie” im NS-Staat: Die “Vernichtung lebensunwerten Lebens.” Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer Verlag GmbH, 1999.

  Kleine Chronik der IBM Deutschland, IBM Corporation, 1993.

  Kolb, Eberhard. Bergen-Belsen: From “Detention Camp” to Concentration Camp, 1943-1945. Trans lated by Gregory Claeys and Christine Lattek. Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1985, 1986.

  Krausnick, Helmut, Hans Buchheim, Martin Broszat, and Hans-Adolf Jacobsen. Anatomy of the SS State. Translated by Richard Barry, Marian Jackson, and Dorothy Long. New York: Walker and Company, 1968.

  von Lang, Jochen, ed. Eichmann Interrogated: Transcripts from the Archives of the Israeli Police. Translated
by Ralph Manheim. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1983.

  Lewin, Abraham. A Cup of Tears: A Diary of the Warsaw Ghetto. Antony Polonsky, ed. Translated by Christopher Hutton. New York: Basil Blackwell, 1989.

  Lifton, Robert Jay. The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide. New York: Basic Books, 1986.

  Lochner, Louis P., ed. and translator. The Goebbels Diaries: 1942-1943. New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1948.

  Lookstein, Haskel. Were We Our Brothers’ Keepers? The Public Response of American Jews to the Holocaust, 1938-1944. Toronto: Hartmore House, 1985; Vintage Books, 1988.

  Marrus, Michael and Robert O. Paxton. Vichy France and the Jews. New York: Schocken Books, 1983.

  Marsalek, Hans. Mauthausen. Wien: Steindl-druck, n.d.

  Maser, Werner. Nuremberg: A Nation on Trial. Translated by Richard Barry. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1979.

  Meacham, Alan D., ed. The Punched Card Data Processing Annual: Applications and Reference Guide 2. Detroit: Gille Associates, Inc., 1960.

  Mitchell, Ruth. The Serbs Choose War. New York: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., 1943.

  Moore, Bob. Victims and Survivors: The Nazi Persecution of the Jews in the Netherlands 1940-1945. New York: Arnold, 1997.

  Paxton, Robert O. Parades and Politics at Vichy: The French Officer Corps Under Marshal Petain. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966.

  Persico, Joseph E. Nuremberg: Infamy on Trial. New York: Viking Penguin, 1994; Penguin Books, 1995.

  Presser, Jacob. Ondergang: De vervolging en verdelging van het Nederlandse Jodentom. ‘s-Gravenhage, 1965.

  Presser, Jacob. The Destruction of the Dutch Jews. Translated by Arnold Pomerans. New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1969.

  Proebster, W.E., ed. Datentechnik im Wandel: 75 Jahre IBM Deutschland. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1986

  Pugh, Emerson W. Building IBM: Shaping an Industry and Its Technology. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1995.