DEHOMAG
| German Hollerith-Maschinen Gesellschaft mbH (DEHOMAG) | |
|---|---|
| legal form | Company with limited liability |
| founding | November 30, 1910 |
| resolution | May 6, 1949 |
| Reason for dissolution | Renaming to Internationale Büro-Maschinen Gesellschaft mbH |
| Seat | Berlin , Sindelfingen , Germany |
| management |
|
| Number of employees |
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| Branch | Electromechanics , data processing , punch cards , punch cards , punch card sorters and tabulating machines |
The DEHOMAG ( De funnel Ho llerith- Ma machines G ompany mbH ) was manufacturer and supplier of electromechanical machines for handling and processing of punched cards .
Founded in 1910
The Deutsche Hollerith-Maschinen Gesellschaft mbH was founded on November 30, 1910 by Willy Heidinger in Berlin . The company was a licensee of the Tabulating Machine Company. In Germany she sold the punch card invented by Herman Hollerith and rented out the punch cards , punch card sorters and tabulating machines required . The first jobs in data processing were censuses in various German countries, followed by companies and public offices as customers.
Takeover by IBM
In 1922, as a result of the German inflation , the company had license debts of 450 billion marks , which corresponded to 104,000 dollars. This was followed by a 90 percent takeover by Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation, whose CEO was Thomas J. Watson . The Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation emerged in the summer of 1911 as the successor company of the Tabulating Machine Company and has been operating as a subsidiary of the International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) since February 1924 . Until 1949, IBM was represented in Germany by the profitable subsidiary DEHOMAG. Willy Heidinger became chairman of the supervisory board in 1930 and Herman Rottke chairman of the management board. Both later showed themselves to be staunch National Socialists .
Former DEHOMAG office building in Bremen
Punched card storage shelf (around 1925)
Punched card sorter IBM 080 with punched card storage rack Hollerith (around 1925)
DEHOMAG tabulating machine D11, 1936–1945, exhibit in the Dresden Technical Collections
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time of the nationalsocialism
In 1934, the IBM subsidiary Optima Maschinenfabrik AG ( Sindelfingen ), which produced scales, punches, testers and spare parts for punched card machines, and Degemag (Deutsche Geschäfts-Maschinen GmbH) , which manufactured control equipment, clocks and scales, merged with DEHOMAG. In order to give the National Socialist regime the impression of a company in German ownership and not under foreign control, the directors Herman Rottke and Hans Hummel were also involved in the company in addition to Heidinger. The three together owned 15 percent of DEHOMAG shares, but they were not allowed to sell or transfer them to third parties. In 1934 a new plant was inaugurated at Lankwitzer Strasse 13-17 in Berlin-Lichterfelde in the presence of prominent National Socialist politicians .
In 1939 the company had over 2500 employees and two plants in Berlin and Sindelfingen. Due to the quasi-monopoly, DEHOMAG's business in the Third Reich was very profitable. It was z. For example, the “ Greater German population census ” was evaluated in the wage order , in which the “racial” origin was also recorded. In addition to the statistical offices and industry, customers included the machine reporting department of the Wehrmacht and the SS . The organization of the Holocaust by the National Socialists also took place with the help of the further developed punch card sorting machines rented by the IBM subsidiary, which were also serviced by DEHOMAG technicians in the concentration camps themselves. Until the German Reich declared war on the United States in December 1941, the profits generated by DEHOMAG could be disguised as license fees transferred to IBM in the United States or invested in real estate in Germany.
Second World War
After the USA entered the war, the company came under forced administration as an enemy company . An advisory committee was set up as a supervisory board and the surpluses went into an escrow account . The four-person advisory committee consisted of the administrator Köttgen as well as Kurt Passow , Willy Heidinger and Edmund Veesenmayer . The committee also worked with IBM's European headquarters in Geneva or with representatives in other subsidiaries, such as the Compagnie électro-comptable (CEC) in France. In 1943, Hermann B. Fellinger was appointed the new administrator by the Reich Minister of Economics . Fellinger dismissed Heidinger as chairman of the management board and installed a four-person advisory board as the new management board. Heidinger died in 1944, Rottke in 1945.
post war period
After the Second World War , IBM was back in business in Germany and among other things relocated the administration of DEHOMAG from Berlin to Sindelfingen. The production of the destroyed Berlin plant continued for a while in Hechingen . The IBM patent office was located in the old town of Hechingen. Immediately after the war there were plans for a complete move to Hechingen, which however did not materialize due to disagreements with the then mayor of Hechingen. The company value was estimated in 1946 at 56.6 million Reichsmarks (with an annual profit of 7.5 million Reichsmarks). By 1949, the company had also got back all manufacturing facilities and frozen funds, including the profits made from war and Holocaust. In May of that year, the company was renamed Internationale Büro-Maschinen Gesellschaft mbH (IBM).
DEHOMAG headquarters in Sindelfingen
DEHOMAG headquarters in Sindelfingen
Headquarters before the demolition in 2013
literature
- Götz Aly, Karl Heinz Roth: The complete recording: census, identification, weeding out under National Socialism. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2000, ISBN 3-596-14767-0
- Edwin Black: IBM and the Holocaust. The global corporation's involvement in the crimes of the Nazis. Propylaea, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-549-07130-2
- Jason Weixelbaum: IBM and The Holocaust Still Stuns Readers as Big Blue Remains Silent The Cutting Edge 2009; English-language review of the original Edwin Black: IBM and The Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation. Dialog Press 2008
- Lars Heide: Between Parent and "Child", IBM and Its German Subsidiary, 1901-1945 . In: Christopher Kobrak, Per H. Hansen (ed.): European Business, Dictatorship, and Political Risk, 1920−1945 , Berghahn, New York a. a. 2004, ISBN 1-57181-629-1
- David Martin Luebke, Sybil Milton: Locating the Victim: An Overview of Census-Taking, Tabulation Technology, and Persecution in Nazi Germany. IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 16, 3 (1994): 25-39, ISSN 1058-6180
- Peter Schaar: The end of privacy . C. Bertelsmann, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-570-00993-2 , p. 34f
- Festschrift for the 25th anniversary of the German Hollerith Machine Society. (Elsner), Berlin, 1935.
Web links
- History of IBM in Germany, 1930s . (No longer available online.) In: IBM Germany . Archived from the original on April 12, 2019; accessed on May 23, 2020.
- History of IBM in Germany, 1940s . (No longer available online.) In: IBM Germany . Archived from the original on February 11, 2017; accessed on May 23, 2020.
- Ralf Bülow: In the beginning there was the punch card: 100 years of IBM Germany. In: heise online . November 30, 2010; accessed on May 23, 2020.
- Edwin Black : Then They Came for the Gypsies: The Legacy of Death's Calculator 2004, Jewish Virtual Library
- Early documents and newspaper articles on DEHOMAG in the 20th Century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b http://www-05.ibm.com/de/ibm/unternehmen/geschichte/1910.html
- ↑ a b c http://www-05.ibm.com/de/ibm/unternehmen/geschichte/1940.html
- ↑ http://www-05.ibm.com/de/ibm/unternehmen/geschichte/1920.html
- ↑ a b c http://www-05.ibm.com/de/ibm/unternehmen/geschichte/1930.html
- ^ Willy Heidinger: Memorandum for the inauguration of the new workplace of the Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen Gesellschaft mbH in Berlin-Lichterfelde on January 8, 1934 . Ed .: DEHOMAG mbH USHMM Library, Washington, DC 1993, p. 39 f . ( ushmm.org - quoted from: Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust. Crown, New York 2001, IV The IBM-Nazi Alliance): “The doctor examines the human body and determines whether [...] all organs for Work for the benefit of the entire organism. [...] We [Dehomag] are very similar to the doctor in that we dissect the German culture body cell by cell. We report on every single feature [...] on a small map. These are not dead cards, on the contrary, they later prove that they come to life when the cards are sorted according to certain characteristics at a rate of 25,000 per hour. These features are grouped like the organs of our culture body and are calculated and determined with the help of our tabulating machine. [...] We are proud to be able to assist with such a task, a task that provides our nation's doctor [Adolf Hitler] with the material he needs for his examinations. Our doctor can then determine whether the calculated values are in line with the health of our people. It also means that if it doesn't, our doctor can take corrective action to correct the sick circumstances. [...] Our characteristics are deeply rooted in our race. Therefore, we must cherish them like a sacred shrine that we must and will keep pure. We have the deepest trust in our doctor and will follow his instructions in blind faith because we know that he will lead our people into a great future. Heil our German people and the Führer! "
- ↑ Made in Berlin | HNF blog. Retrieved July 5, 2020 .
- ↑ Hauke Friederichs: When punch cards are death sentences. In: G / Geschichte , No. 01/2018, pp. 46–48, here p. 48.
- ^ Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen Gesellschaft DEHOMAG. Retrieved August 21, 2017 .
- ↑ Ralf Bülow: In the beginning there was the punch card: 100 years of IBM Germany. In: heise online. November 30, 2010, accessed May 23, 2020 .