Dehimag or New York Rules?

Dehomag or IBM? In the introduction to IBM and the Holocaust the author Black warns against skipping through the book and instead says that we must follow the story progressively in order to have a balanced overview of the complexities of it. But two posts back we had a quote from pages 55-57 where the ownership of a German company Owning- Leasing- Manufacturing- Servicing- Promoting Hollerith computers for use of the German government and German business is in fact the critical legal issue. Five hundred pages later in the chapter ‘The Spoils of Genocide 2’ Military Law 52 presents itself whereby those enterprises which were used and managed by those fighting and killing Allies and Jews were to be confiscated and become ‘reparations’. And as an example of a company similar to IBM affiliated to an American owned manufacturer of bullet proof was Plexiglas- half owned by German and American citizens- This enterprise was confiscated by the American military authorities. Thus as a ‘critical to the German war effort’ company- Dehomag should have been promptly and easily taken and the evidence of war crimes with which Dehomag management were involved investigated fully. But working to stop that happening we read ‘among American forces there existed a cohesive group of men with common identification. As former employees of IBM on leave they affectionately referred to themselves as ‘IBM Soldiers’…. Making it clear that they were still part of the IBM family with careers waiting after their military service, Watson announced… ‘As a result of your training you come back better equipped for future service in the IBM… if at any time we can be of help to you let us know’ p517 But the critical issue from a legal point of view is- Was IBM ever an independent German company with the name Dehomag or was it always completely under the control of Thomas Watson in New York? Well the answer seems to be that during The Third Reich period while IBM New York held a 90% ownership of Dehomag- effectively responding to encouragement from Watson senior German managers were in day to day control. But once the US Army’s IBM soldiers arrived the process of making Dehomag totally part of the IBM ‘family’ began and we read ‘As Germany emerged from occupation Dehomag was edging back into IBM’s NY domination. The company had received permission to undertake various contractual agreements with Dehomag. But only upon formal decontrol would IBM NY regain genuine custody of the German operation. In the meantime Dehomag’s financial success was impressive. By the end of 1946 it had emereged from the bombed and dissected Germany with a valuation of more than RM 56 and a gross profit of RM 7.5. A key towards regaining total control was fortifying the argument the Dehomag Was Not a German company, but an American owned enterprise’ p541 IBM and the Holocaust- Black 2001