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To: ajtj99 who wrote (9511)	2/11/2001 9:59:14 AM
From: Poet	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 10876

Yes, AG speaks on Tuesday, and I'm sure we won't be the only people listening closely for signs of further rate reductions. I'm doing my weekly research and came upon this in this morning's New York Times: February 11, 2001 Lawsuit Says I.B.M. Aided the Nazis in Technology By BARNABY J. FEDER awyers who have represented victims of Nazi oppression in lawsuits against European banks, insurers and manufacturing companies in the last five years have turned their sights to American executives of I.B.M. In a lawsuit filed yesterday in Federal District Court in Brooklyn, the lawyers contend that I.B.M., the world's largest computer company, shares responsibility for the way the Third Reich used its data-processing technology. The lawsuit says I.B.M supplied technology that it knew would be used to "facilitate persecution and genocide." The lawsuit was timed to coincide with the release tomorrow of a book, which the lawyers declined to identify, exploring I.B.M.'s links to the Nazis. The lawyers acknowledge that public relations strategies have been an important element in their record of achieving Nazi-era settlements totaling more than $7 billion without winning a judgment. I.B.M. declined to comment directly on either the book or the lawsuit, but it noted that the Nazis' use of tabulating machines made by Dehomag, I.B.M.'s German subsidiary, has been known for decades and is part of an exhibit at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. "As with hundreds of foreign- owned companies that did business in Germany at that time, Dehomag came under the control of Nazi authorities prior to and during World War II," Carol J. Makovich, an I.B.M. spokeswoman, said in a message to employees posted on Friday on the company's internal Web site. Filed on behalf of concentration camp survivors, the lawsuit seeks restitution from I.B.M. based on "profits made through its violations of international law." It also urges the court to require the company to make its records public. I.B.M. says it has donated its records from that period to New York University and Hohenheim University in Stuttgart, Germany. The suit argues that Thomas J. Watson, I.B.M.'s chairman from 1915 to 1956, and other senior executives in New York did nothing to stop the Nazis from using I.B.M. technology because they wanted to protect profits. It charges that they knew or should have known where the technology was being used because the company leased the equipment to customers rather than selling it, serviced the machines, and helped customers customize punch cards for each application. The machines were used in German censuses in 1933 and 1939, to organize civil and military operations and, according to documents cited in the lawsuit, to manage concentration camps. Like other lawsuits based on human rights violations, Holocaust litigation often stands on shaky legal ground because evidence is missing or because it focuses on matters that courts have traditionally left to politicians and diplomats to negotiate on behalf of citizens. But the sensitivity of multinationals to negative publicity and, in some cases, shame about past activity can sometimes give class-action lawyers a strong hand in negotiating settlements. Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen Gesellschaft, as Dehomag is formally known, was founded by Willy Heidinger in 1910 to exploit tabulating technology invented by the American Hermann Hollerith. World War I left Dehomag deep in debt, giving I.B.M., then called the Computing- Tabulating-Recording Company, the leverage to buy 90 percent of Dehomag's stock. After that, the suit alleges, Hollerith technology was controlled by Mr. Watson and I.B.M. USA. There is no evidence in the suit that officials in New York explicitly ordered that technology be supplied to the Nazis with the understanding it would be used in concentration camps. But the suit says that when Dehomag opened a plant near Berlin in 1934, Mr. Heidinger gave a speech touting the use of Hollerith cards to record "individual characteristics of every single member of the nation," expressed pride in giving Hitler data that could be used in "corrective interventions," and pledged to "follow his orders blindly." Documents assembled by the lawyers show that I.B.M. USA resisted pressure from both the Nazi government and Mr. Heidinger to surrender its ownership rights, but that the Nazis controlled all Dehomag equipment placements beginning in 1937. On Dec. 2, 1941, I.B.M. reported to the United States secretary of state that it had refused to sell Dehomag but that "we have practically no control under present conditions."