IBM Warns Against Nazi Book

B E R L I N, Feb. 12 -- Computer giant IBM has alerted its employeesabout an upcoming book detailing the company’s alleged role in helpingNazis carry out the Holocaust, according to an internal companymessage.

The book, by Washington-based researcher Edwin Black, is titledIBM and the Holocaust. It claims that punch-card machines builtby IBM were a key factor enabling the Nazis to make their killingoperations more efficient.

The allegations are also the focus of a lawsuit reportedly filedagainst IBM in New York, but the company hasn’t yet seen either thebook or the lawsuit and isn’t commenting in detail, Ian Colley,IBM’s European spokesman in Paris, said today.

“If this book points to new and verifiable information thatadvances understanding of this tragic era, IBM will examine it andask that appropriate scholars and historians do the same,” thecompany said in its statement to employees last week.

Nazis Took Over German Subsidiary

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IBM’s German subsidiary during the Nazi era, Deutsche HollerithMaschinen GmbH, was taken over by the Nazis. A machine made by thecompany — believed to have been used in the German census in 1933, theyear the Nazis took power — is on display at the U.S. HolocaustMemorial Museum in Washington.

The German division, which after the war became IBM Germany, haspaid into Germany’s government-industry initiative to compensatepeople forced to work for the Nazis during the war.

Colley said IBM itself has turned over all its information onthe company’s Nazi-era operations to universities.

“We obviously find anything to do with the Nazi regimeabhorrent and will be the first to condemn the activities of anyonewho was associated with the Nazi regime,” Colley said.