IBM and the Holocaust Quotes

“Behind every text footnote is a file folder with all the hardcopy documentation needed to document every sentence in this book at a moment’s notice. Moreover, I assembled a team of hair-splitting, nitpicking, adversarial researchers and archivists to review each and every sentence, collectively ensuring that each fact and fragment of a fact was backed up with the necessary black and white documents.”
― Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation

“Hitler's Reich established camps all over Europe, but they were not alike. Some, such as Flossenburg in Germany, were labor camps where inmates were worked to death. Several, such as Westerbork in Holland, were transit camps, that is, staging sites en route to other destinations. A number of camps such as Treblinka in Poland, were operated for the sole purpose of immediate extermination by gas chamber. Some camps, such as Auschwitz, combined elements of all three. Without IBM's machinery, continuing upkeep and service, as well as the supply of punch cards, whether located on-site or off-site, Hitler's camps could have never managed the numbers they did.”
― Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust

“In other words,” said Flint, “you want part of the ice you cut.”
― Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation

“First, he sold himself—like any adroit salesman—and then worked around their collective worries about his conspiracy conviction.”
― Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation

“at least one CTR director bellowed at Flint, “What are you trying to do? Ruin this business? Who is going to run this business while he serves his term in jail?”
― Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation

“and that the business world functioned much as the animal kingdom: survival of the fittest.”
― Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation

“As a nineteenth-century international economic adventurer, Flint believed that the accretion of money was its own nurturing reward,”
― Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation

“Watson’s was national. Flint’s was international.”
― Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation

“WHEN THOMAS WATSON walked into Charles Flint’s Fifth Avenue suite, their respective reputations surrounded them like force fields.”
― Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation

“It was now over.”
― Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation

“For seventeen years, NCR had been Watson’s life—the fast cars and even faster commissions, the command and control of industrial subterfuge, the sense of belonging.”
― Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation

“The government declined to re-prosecute.58”
― Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation

“Eventually, Watson’s attorneys successfully overturned the conviction on a technicality.”
― Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation

“Considering public sentiment, prosecutors offered consent decrees in lieu of jail time.”
― Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation

“Watson recruited men to carry supplies in on their backs until the goods reached Dayton—all to cheering crowds.57”
― Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation

“When NCR relief trains encountered irreparable tracks,”
― Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation

“Bottled water and paper cups were distributed to flood victims along with hay cots for sleeping.”
― Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation

“The company’s assembly line was retrofitted to produce a flotilla of rudimentary rowboats”
― Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation

“The Cash pounced. NCR organized an immense emergency relief effort.”
― Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation

“Watson embraced many of Patterson’s regimenting techniques as indispensable doctrine for good sales.”
― Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation

“One day during a pep rally to the troops, Watson scrawled the word THINK on a piece of paper. Patterson saw the note and ordered THINK signs distributed throughout the company.”
― Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation

“NCR salesmen wore dark suits, the corporation innovated a One Hundred Point Club for agents who met their quota, and The Cash stressed “clean living” as a virtue for commercial success.”
― Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation

“battered and broken Thomas pleaded with Watson, as the new owner of his company, to be kind to a long-time devoted employee. Amos Thomas had been conquered.51”
― Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation

“Eventually, they would either be driven out of business or sell out to Watson with a draconian non-compete clause.”
― Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation

“In 1903, Watson was called to Patterson’s office and instructed to destroy second-hand dealers across the country.”
― Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation

“The unscrupulous NCR president had learned to use frivolous libel and patent suits to drive his competition into submission.”
― Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation

“Patterson liked Watson’s style.”
― Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation

“Watson enjoyed the triumph so thoroughly, he bragged about the incident for years to come.”
― Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation

“A Hallwood salesman whom Watson had befriended one day mentioned that he was calling on a prospect the next day.”
― Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation

“Watson never missed an opening.”
― Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation