IBM and the Holocaust (26 page)

The American Chamber of Commerce, comprised of the nation's most powerful magnates and corporate executives, was a powerful political influence in America. Its Foreign Department functioned as the American Section of the International Chamber of Commerce. The ICC was a non-governmental organization created by the League of Nations to promote world trade and study the hard mechanics of treaties governing such international commerce as postal, shipping, currency, banking, and patent rules.

Watson was elected chairman of the Foreign Department, which also made him the chairman of the American Section of the ICC. This, in essence, made Watson America's official businessman to the world.
⁸⁴

In his new capacity, Watson seized the opportunity to rapidly organize the Eighth Biennial Congress of the International Chamber of Commerce to be held in Paris in June 1935. Quickly, he secured the U.S. Government's imprimatur for the event, thus elevating its status and glitter. To that end, numerous letters were exchanged with Secretary of State Cordell Hull and his subordinates. State Department officers were invited to sail on the same ship with Watson and his ICC co-delegates as a cohesive entourage. American ambassadors, consuls, and attaches from across Europe were beckoned to attend. Hull himself was importuned by Watson for a message of congratulations for the ICC's related Council meeting and referring to "world peace." Such a greeting from Hull, prominently printed in program notes and shown to key contacts, would reinforce the image of Watson as a political dynamo within the Roosevelt Administration.
⁸⁵

After a flurry of minute revisions, Hull strung together a sequence of inconsequential words that Watson could publish to show the American government's seeming approval of the Paris event and, more importantly, of Watson's leadership of it. "I take this means," cabled Hull, "of expressing my interest in the purpose of the meeting which you will attend to discuss ways in which business organizations can cooperate most effectively to secure a more adequate and practical economic approach to world peace. The meeting is timely and I shall be glad to learn its results on your return."
⁸⁶

In the bright glare of the international media, Watson assembled the world's leading corporate leaders, including those from the Third Reich, to discuss the most pressing economic problems of the day. The topics debated: avoidance of competitive currency depreciation; uniform treatment of foreign corporations; payment of international debts; and international protection of inventions, trademarks, patents, and models.
⁸⁷
Grandiloquent speeches before the plenary, debates among working groups, elaborate communiques to government leaders, and hastily organized press dispatches spotlighted the official agenda of the Congress.
⁸⁸

But one pressing economic topic was never raised during the eminent conclaves. The issue was not an abstruse fiscal machination that dwelled in the unnoticed realms of international economic theory. It was the one financial crisis that threatened to overwhelm civilized governments throughout the Western world by the sheer crush of its tragic sorrow and economic implication. Refugees were never mentioned.

Indeed, the whole issue of the Hitler menace was sidestepped as Watson encouraged all to assume a "business as usual" posture with Germany. Hitler's Reich craved respite from the torrent of international criticism battering its economy. Watson did what he could to help. Germany believed that if it could just export its products and be left alone to pursue its militancy, the Third Reich would prevail. In the Nazi mindset, whenever it could function routinely in world commerce, it won fleeting validation for its course.

During the Paris Congress, Watson was elected the next president of the entire ICC. He was now the undisputed paragon of world trade. He would be installed as president at the next ICC Congress scheduled for June 1937. As such, he was proud to announce his personal selection for the host site. The world may have been isolating Germany. All Western nations were suffering the financial burden of Nazi oppression. Refugees flowed to their cities. Tension arising from Hitler's threats of invasion and exported Fascism spurred an expensive arms race. But Watson staunchly urged all to join him in what he promised would be the biggest and most grandiose Congress yet.

"We are going . . . to Berlin," he told his Chamber colleagues. "We are free from those particular antagonisms which strong political feelings have caused so much to break nations apart."
⁸⁹

Watson would not criticize Hitler. On the contrary, in his countless interviews and public speeches, Watson somehow seemed to emphasize ideas the Reich found profoundly supportive. At any other time in history, Watson's words might have been received as visionary gems. But in the tenor of the times, they struck a chord of grateful resonance with the Reich.

Speaking at both IBM and ICC events, Watson regularly pleaded for "an equitable redistribution of natural resources," and expressed his support for a rearmed Germany. He voiced his oft-quoted opinions at a time when the Reich was daily violating the Versailles Treaty by rebuilding its war machine, and threatening to invade neighboring regions to acquire the very natural resources it felt it deserved.
⁹⁰

Watson was explicit at one key conference when he asked ICC colleagues to press their contacts in government for "some sound understanding in regard to limitation of armaments," and then admitted, "we are not talking about disarmaments." As usual, he added that progress was needed on one other point, "which is of the greatest of importance, a fairer distribution of raw materials." Addressing the crippling boycott facing Germany, Watson repeated his mantra, "We believe that as soon as we can have the proper flow of trade both ways across the border, there will not be any need for soldiers crossing those boundaries."
⁹¹

Even when spoken to his face, Watson maintained aphasic disregard for any criticism of the Hitler regime. At an April 26, 1937, ICC banquet in Washington preparatory to the Berlin Congress, the guest speaker was John Foster Dulles, former American legal counsel to the Treaty at Versailles and one of the nation's foremost international law experts. His presentation was en titled "The Fundamental Causes of War." Watson was not happy about the topic. Before Dulles spoke, Watson even lobbied Dulles to change the title. Dulles openly quipped that Watson had complained: "Nobody wants to hear about war, let's hear about peace." To this, Dulles told the members, "I said, 'Alright, you [Watson] can write the title if I can write the speech. Before I get through, I think you may wish that . . . I had written the title and he had written the speech."
⁹²

Dulles tore into Germany, saying all the things Watson had considered impermissible. "Take the case of Germany," said Dulles, with Watson standing next to him. "Inability to get foreign exchange [due to the anti-Nazi boycott] has blockaded Germany almost as effectively as she was blockaded during the war by fleets and the armies of the Allies. There is a shortage of food, a shortage of raw material, and the same sense of being circled by hostile forces. . . . It may be that in fact a country has all the facilities, which it requires to develop within its borders . . . It may be possible to prove all that as a matter of logic. But logic has never cured a mental disease."
⁹³

Caustically declaring that the well-worn catchphrase of "peace" bandied by Germany and its intellectual allies was a fraud, Dulles forcefully insisted, "A state to remain peaceful, must afford its individual citizens an opportunity to work and to enjoy the fruits of their labor. There must be no undue repression of the individual . . . where such repression occurs on a large scale, peace is threatened. The outbreak, when it comes, may be civil war, but it may equally be international war."
⁹⁴

When Dulles finished his long speech, Watson declined to even acknowledge it had taken place. Departing from his usual toastmaster effusiveness, Watson simply introduced the next speaker, the American Secretary of Agriculture. Minutes later, Watson tried to counteract Dulles' comments by exhorting his fellow entrepreneurs to support the ICC gathering in Germany. "At our meeting in Berlin," urged Watson, "we hope to see as many of you people as possibly can get over because it is of great importance to your country that you be there and assist us in carrying on that meeting."
⁹⁵

Watson reviled any detraction of Germany. One typical comment to the Associated Press, reported in the
New York Times,
used some of the same formulations Hitler defenders themselves had so frequently invoked. "Mr. Watson scoffed at the possibility of another world war," said the
Times.
" 'World peace,' he [Watson] declared, 'will result when the nations of the world concentrate on their own problems and set their individual houses in order.' "
⁹⁶

When challenged, Watson would insist, "I'm an optimist." Those among friends and family who knew him best later tried to excuse his behavior as "naive."
⁹⁷
But there was none shrewder than Watson. He calculated his words like a carpenter: measure twice, cut once.

Watson confessed his feelings shortly thereafter in a draft letter to none other than Reich Economics Minister Schacht. "I have felt a deep personal concern over Germany's fate," Watson wrote, "and a growing attachment to the many Germans with whom I gained contact at home and abroad. This attitude has caused me to give public utterance to my impressions and convictions in favor of Germany at a time when public opinion in my country and elsewhere was predominantly unfavorable."
⁹⁸

Moreover, Watson knew war was imminent. So did Heidinger. In October 1936, long before the intellectual showdown with Dulles, Heidinger sent a memo to IBM NY detailing plans to build bomb shelters for Dehomag in case war broke out. "The authorities have approached us," reported Heidinger, "with demands that sufficient care should be taken to protect our plant and operations against air attack. In view of the fact that we are located close to a railway station, such demands seem justified . . . in the interest of the safety of the lives of the workers and employees . . . we believe we should recommend immediately the setting up of air raid shelters. . . . Something must surely be done immediately."
⁹⁹

With metric specificity, Dehomag's memo called for two massive bomb shelters, each large enough for 950 people or a mass of machinery, as well as an underground tunnel linking factory buildings at the Lichterfelde complex. The bomb shelters were later approved by Watson.
¹⁰⁰
Thus IBM assured that Hitler's punch card capability would be protected from Allied strikes, even if those included American bombers.

Thomas Watson was more than just a businessman selling boxes to the Third Reich. For his Promethean gift of punch card technology that enabled the Reich to achieve undreamed of efficiencies both in its rearmament program and its war against the Jews, for his refusal to join the chorus of strident anti-Nazi boycotters and isolators and instead open a commercial corridor the Reich could still navigate, for his willingness to bring the world's commercial summit to Berlin, for his value as a Roosevelt crony, for his glitter and legend, Hitler would bestow upon Thomas Watson a medal—the highest it could confer on any non-German.

The Merit Cross of the German Eagle with Star was created for Thomas Watson to "honor foreign nationals who made themselves deserving of the German Reich." It ranked second in prestige only to Hitler's German Grand Cross.
¹⁰¹

Watson was honored. At the next ICC Congress, he would not only be installed as president of the ICC, he would be decorated by
der Fuhrer.
Working with Goebbels as stage manager, Watson would make the 1937 ICC conference in Berlin a commercial homage to Germany. Hitler in turn would make that event a national homage to Thomas Watson.

THE GREAT
24,000-ton oceanliner
Manhattan
brought ninety-five American executives and their families to Hamburg on June 24, 1937, where they refreshed and boarded trains for Berlin to attend the ICC gathering. As usual, Watson made arrangements for the State Department, its ambassadors, consuls, and other envoys to sail with the group or otherwise become abundantly visible. In Berlin, the Americans would join more than 2,500 delegates and others from forty-two other countries marshaled by Watson to make a strong showing. The group included 900 from Germany. The suites of the Hotel Adlon, Bristol, and Continental were waiting. The Adlon doubled as Watson's nerve center for the Congress. Scenic tours were arranged for the after hours.
¹⁰²