IBM and the Holocaust

IBM and the Holocaust is a book written by Edwin Black published in 2001 which chronicles the alliance between International Business Machines Corporation and Nazi Germany.

The book quotes extensively from numerous IBM and government memos and letters that describe how IBM in New York, IBM's Geneva office and Dehomag, its German subsidiary, were intimately involved in supporting Nazi oppression. The book also includes IBM's internal reports that admit that these machines made the Nazis much more efficient in their efforts. Several C-SPAN broadcasts and a 2003 documentary film The Corporation showed close-ups of several documents including IBM code sheets for concentration camps taken from the files of the National Archives. Prisoner Code 8 was Jew, Code 11 was Gypsy. Camp Code 001 was Auschwitz, Code 002 was Buchenwald. Status Code 5 was executed by order, code 6 was gas chamber. One IBM report extensively quoted in the book written by the company's European manager during WWII, declared “in Germany a campaign started for, what has been termed … ‘organization of the second front.’” The memo added, “In military literature and in newspapers, the importance and necessity of having in all phases of life, behind the front, an organization which would remain intact and would function with ‘Blitzkrieg’ efficiency … was brought out. What we had been preaching in vain for years all at once began to be realized.”

IBM has never contradicted any of the evidence or facts in the books or the many documentaries, instead claiming it has no real information on the period. Although IBM actively worked with the Hitler regime from its inception in 1933 to its demise in 1945, IBM has asserted that since their German subsidiary came under temporary receivership by the Nazi authorities from 1941 to 1945, the main company was not responsible for their role in the latter years of the Holocaust. Shortly after the war, the company worked aggressively to recover the profits made from the many Hollerith departments in the concentration camps, the printing of millions of punch cards used to keep track of prisoners, the custom-built punch card systems, and subcontracted services. The company also paid its employees special bonuses based on high sales volume to the Nazis and collaborator regimes elsewhere in Europe. As in many corporate cases, when the US entered the war and Germany assumed custodianship of an American-owned company, the Third Reich left in place the original IBM managers who continued their regular contacts via Geneva which in turn was in regular communication with New York. IBM has consistently refused calls by Jewish, Gypsy, survivor, and veterans groups to apologize for its involvement with the Nazi regime.

IBM issued a press release addressing the controversy in the book in 2001.

Numerous lawsuits against IBM were launched by plaintiffs in America and Europe as soon as the book released but none were successful due to either jurisdictional issues or various statutes of limitations both in the United States and Europe.