Dehomag was a German subsidiary of IBM with a monopoly in the German market before and during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. The word was a portmanteau for Deutsche Hollerith-Maschinen GmbH ( en, German Hollerith Machines LLC). ''Hollerith'' refers to the German-American inventor of the technology of

punched card A punched card (also punch card or punched-card) is a piece of stiff paper that holds digital data represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions. Punched cards were once common in data processing applications or to di ...

Herman Hollerith Herman Hollerith (February 29, 1860 – November 17, 1929) was a German-American statistician, inventor, and businessman who developed an electromechanical tabulating machine The tabulating machine was an electromechanical machine designed t ...

. In April 1949 the company name was changed to IBM Deutschland.

Background

The technology of punched cards dates back to the 18th century when it was used for mass production of woven textiles and later used as a recording and playback system in player pianos. The use of punched cards for recording and tabulating data was first proposed and used by

Semyon Korsakov Semyon Nikolaevich Korsakov (russian: Семён Николаевич Корсаков, ) (14 January 1787 – 1 December 1853 OS) was a Russian government official, noted both as a homeopath and an inventor who was involved with an early vers ...

around 1805. In 1832

Charles Babbage Charles Babbage (; 26 December 1791 – 18 October 1871) was an English polymath. A mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer, Babbage originated the concept of a digital programmable computer. Babbage is considered ...

proposed using similar cards to program and to store computations for his calculating engine. Punched card technology was further developed for data-processing by

from the 1880s. It was used for the

1890 United States Census The United States census of 1890 was taken beginning June 2, 1890, but most of the 1890 census materials were destroyed in 1921 when a building caught fire and in the subsequent disposal of the remaining damaged records. It determined the reside ...

and for the census work of several foreign governments.

History

Willy Heidinger, an acquaintance of Hollerith, licensed all of Hollerith’s The Tabulating Machine Company patents in 1910, and created Dehomag in Germany. In 1911 The Tabulating Machine Company was amalgamated (via stock acquisition) with three others, creating a fifth company, the

Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR) was a holding company of manufacturers of record-keeping and measuring systems subsequently known as IBM. In 1911, financier and noted trust organizer, "Father of Trusts", Charles R. Flint amal ...

(CTR). In 1923 CTR acquired 90% ownership of Dehomag, thus acquiring patents developed by them. In 1924 CTR was renamed IBM.

Holocaust

As an IBM subsidiary, Dehomag became the main provider of

computing Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and development of both hardware and software. Computing has scientific, e ...

expertise and equipment in

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

. Dehomag gave the German government the means for two official

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses incl ...

es of the population after 1933 and for searching its data. It gave the

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...

a way of tracing

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

and dissidents using the powerful automated search tools using the IBM machines. It enabled them to search databases rapidly and efficiently, and the methods were used throughout occupied Europe by the

Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...

and others to locate and arrest its victims, contributing to the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

. Dehomag leased and maintained the German government's punched card machines. Dehomag's general manager for Germany, Hermann Rottke, reported directly to IBM President

Thomas J. Watson Thomas John Watson Sr. (February 17, 1874 – June 19, 1956) was an American businessman who served as the chairman and CEO of IBM. He oversaw the company's growth into an international force from 1914 to 1956. Watson developed IBM's manageme ...

in New York. It was legal for IBM to conduct business with Germany directly until the United States entered the war in December 1941. IBM New York established a special subsidiary in the occupied

General Government The General Government (german: Generalgouvernement, pl, Generalne Gubernatorstwo, uk, Генеральна губернія), also referred to as the General Governorate for the Occupied Polish Region (german: Generalgouvernement für die be ...

territory, Watson Business Machines, to deal with railway traffic there during the

Holocaust in Poland The Holocaust in Poland was part of the European-wide Holocaust organized by Nazi Germany and took place in German-occupied Poland. During the genocide, three million Polish Jews were murdered, half of all Jews murdered during the Holocaust. ...

. The German Transport Ministry used IBM machines under the New York-controlled subsidiary in

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

, not the German subsidiary. Watson Business Machines operated a punch card printing shop near the

Warsaw Ghetto The Warsaw Ghetto (german: Warschauer Ghetto, officially , "Jewish Residential District in Warsaw"; pl, getto warszawskie) was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during World War II and the Holocaust. It was established in November 1940 by the G ...

. The punch cards bore the indicia of the German subsidiary Dehomag. Leon Krzemieniecki, the last surviving person involved in the administration of the rail transportation to

Auschwitz Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...

and

Treblinka Treblinka () was an extermination camp, built and operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II. It was in a forest north-east of Warsaw, south of the village of Treblinka in what is now the Masovian Voivodeship. The camp ...

, stated he knew the punched card machines were not German machines, because the labels were in English. Income from the machines leased in

was sent through

Geneva Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaki ...

to IBM in New York.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Former IBM subsidiaries Companies involved in the Holocaust Technology companies established in 1910 German companies established in 1910 Portmanteaus

Background

History

Holocaust

See also

References

Further reading

External links