IBM during World War II


Both the United States government and Nazi German government used IBM punched card technology for some parts of their camps operation and record keeping.

By country

Germany

In Germany, during World War II, IBM engaged in business practices which have been the source of controversy. Much attention focuses on the role of IBM's German subsidiary, known as Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen Gesellschaft, or Dehomag. Topics in this regard include
In the United States IBM was, at the request of the government, the subcontractor for the Japanese internment camps' punched card project:
IBM equipment was used for cryptography by US Army and Navy organisations, Arlington Hall and OP-20-G and similar Allied organisations using Hollerith punched cards.
The company developed and built the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator which was used to perform computations for the Manhattan project.

Critics of IBM's actions during World War II

A 2001 book by Edwin Black, entitled IBM and the Holocaust, reached the conclusion that IBM's commercial activities in Germany during World War II make it morally complicit in the Holocaust. An updated 2002 paperback edition of the book included new evidence of the connection between IBM's United States headquarters, which controlled a Polish subsidiary, and the Nazis. Oliver Burkeman wrote for The Guardian, "The paperback provides the first evidence that the company's dealings with the Nazis were controlled from its New York headquarters throughout the second world war."
In February 2001, an Alien Tort Claims Act claim was filed in U.S. federal court on behalf of concentration camp survivors against IBM. The suit accused IBM of allegedly providing the punched card technology that facilitated the Holocaust, and for covering up German IBM subsidiary Dehomag's activities. In April 2001, the lawsuit was dropped after lawyers feared the suit would slow down payments from a German Holocaust fund for Holocaust survivors who had suffered under Nazi persecution. IBM's German division had paid $3 million into the fund, while making it clear they were not admitting liability.
In 2004, the human rights organization Gypsy International Recognition and Compensation Action filed suit against IBM in Switzerland. The case was dismissed in 2006, as the statute of limitations had expired.

Responses to critics

In an "IBM Statement on Nazi-era Book and Lawsuit", IBM responded in February 2001 that:
Richard Bernstein, writing for The New York Times Book Review in 2001, pointed out that "many American companies did what I.B.M. did.... What then makes I.B.M. different?" He states that Black's case in his book IBM and the Holocaust "is long and heavily documented, and yet he does not demonstrate that bears some unique or decisive responsibility for the evil that was done." IBM quoted this claim in a March 2002 "Addendum to IBM Statement on Nazi-era Book and Lawsuit," after the publication of Black's revised paperback edition: