[2] Competitors in the pre-World War II era included Remington Rand, Powers, Bull, NCR, Burroughs, and others.
When the US entered the World War II in 1941, the company ownership was taken by the Nazi government and given to a custodian, H. Gabrecht, who also custodied the Netherlands subsidiary.
[7] During the war the Nazi Maschinelles Berichtswesen (Mechanical Reporting) department took machines from Belgium to use in other parts of the Reich.
Custodian Gabrecht worked on the contracts for these takings, so that the owner, IBM NY, would eventually be properly paid for the machine's use.
By unknown means the subsidiary survived and continued to provide punch card based scheduling to the railroads.
The Nazis took some machines from Czechoslovakia to railways in the East, and Kuczek put the rental money in Prague Kreditbank.
[21] Watson visited in 1933, and made a deal with Heidinger that allowed Dehomag to do business in territories that were already covered by other IBM subsidiaries.
Attendants at opening included Watson's representative Walter Jones, Heidinger of Dehomag, Rudolf Schmeer, Deputy Leader of the German Labor Front, Artur Görlitzer, Deputy Gauleiter of Berlin, directors of financial institutions, like the Reichsbank, the Police, Post Office, Ministry of Defense, Reich Statistical Office, and Reichsbahn.
Customers came from all over government and industry, including IG Farben, Zeiss Ikon, Siemens, Daimler-Benz, Junkers, Krupp, Deutsche Bank, public works departments, statistical offices, the Reichsbahn railroad, and many others.
At the opening of a new IBM facility, he spoke of Hitler as a physician who would 'correct' the 'sick circumstances' of the 'German cultural body', by using Dehomag's statistical surveys of the population.
In contrast, in the western occupied zones a strong postwar Dehomag in the hands of an IBM was seen as desirable by the Allies for databases and administration as the Cold War began, and was indeed business as usual what with IBM systems in place in many areas of Western Allies' war theatre.
[30] IBM did a very large amount of business in the Netherlands (for example opening a card printing plant in 1936[31]) but did not incorporate a subsidiary until March 1940.
[33] In December 1941 (after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor), the US entered the war, and IBM was legally restricted from doing business with its subsidiaries in enemy-controlled territory.
[39][40] Powers (later Remington Rand) would remain a stiff competitor, preferred by the Japanese government, until after World War II.
[44] Card production was aided by advice from a man from Dehomag[44] In 1939, IBM Japan was involved in the aircraft business.
[50] As the US-Japan war approached, Japan's government restricted imports of IBM equipment as well as exports of royalty money.
Before the war, its stock ownership was put under Norwegian and other non-American men, to avoid Nazi anger (and possible takeover) after Watson's rejection of a medal Hitler had given him in the late 1930s.
[60] Norway was one of the countries under sway of German Dehomag custodian Fellinger, who helped manager Jens Tellefson deal with the Reich.
was reincorporated as Watson Büromaschien GmbH, given a German manager, and given a new area to work in: what the Nazis called the 'General Government' section of Poland.
It participated in the December 1939 census of Poland, which SD chief Heydrich wrote would be 'the basis for the evacuation' of Poles and Jews.
After the war in 1945, IBM submitted requests to the State Department to secure its Romanian bank accounts, and sent compensation claims for damaged equipment.
[64] After the falling of the communist regime in December 1989, IBM started a commercial partnership with RBS Ltd. (Romanian Business Systems), one of the first private companies in the country.
[67] In 1937, (during the Stalin's Great Purge) US ambassador Joseph E. Davies appealed to the Soviet government on behalf of an IBM employee who was working there.
He also wrote of IBM that "It has had a long-continued business relationship with different branches of the Soviet government, which relations, I understand, have always been pleasant.
"[68] When Germany overran the Soviet Union during Operation Barbarossa, it seized spare parts from IBM machines that it found there.
However Military Attache Barnwell Legge and Consul General Sam Woods helped him get around these problems and enter the US.
He coordinated with Edmund Veesenmayer, who was a Dehomag advisor and affiliated with the Ustashi (pro-Nazis in Croatia, a part of Yugoslavia).
After the war, the Nazi custodian gave a payment to US Army Property Control Officer Reed for transmittal to IBM NY.
And as World War II began, a similar regime came into being, with the Nazi government of Germany appointing custodians over foreign companies, including IBM.
For example, IBM's German subsidiary Dehomag got the notable Dr Edmund Veesenmayer, who, amongst other things, oversaw the holocaust in Hungary.