Editing Thomas J. Watson (section)

===Dealings with Nazi Germany===
In 1937, as President of the International Chamber of Commerce, Watson met [[Adolf Hitler]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://hbr.org/podcast/2019/11/lessons-from-ibm-in-nazi-germany|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200219005653/https://hbr.org/podcast/2019/11/lessons-from-ibm-in-nazi-germany|url-status=dead|archive-date=2020-02-19|title=Lessons from IBM in Nazi Germany|date=2020-02-19|access-date=2020-02-19}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/punched-cards/2/15/109|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200219005634/https://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/punched-cards/2/15/109|url-status=dead|archive-date=2020-02-19|title=Tom Watson, Sr. meets with Adolf Hitler – CHM Revolution|date=2020-02-19|access-date=2020-02-19}}</ref> During the 1930s, IBM's German subsidiary was its most profitable foreign operation. A 2001 book by Edwin Black, ''[[IBM and the Holocaust]]'', claims that Watson's pursuit of profit led him to personally approve and spearhead IBM's strategic technological relationship with [[Nazi Germany]]. It describes how IBM provided the tabulating equipment Hitler used to round up the Jews. His Hollerith punch-card machines are in the Holocaust Museum today. The book describes IBM's punch cards as "a card with standardized holes", each representing a different trait of the individual. The card was fed into a "reader" and sorted. Punch cards identified Jews by name. Each one served as "a twentieth-century [[Barcode|bar code]] for human beings".<ref name="Black 2001">{{cite book | last = Black| first = Edwin|title = IBM and the Holocaust| publisher = Crown Publishers|year = 2001|url=http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/}}</ref> In particular, critics point to the [[Order of the German Eagle]] medal that Watson received at the Berlin ICC meeting in 1937, as evidence that he was being honored for the help that IBM's German subsidiary [[Dehomag]] (Deutsche Hollerith-Maschinen Gesellschaft mbH) and its punch card machines provided the [[Nazi]] regime, particularly in the tabulation of census data (which included the location of Jews). Another study argues that Watson believed, perhaps naively, that the medal was in recognition of his years of labor on behalf of global commerce and international peace.<ref name="Maney 2003" /><sup>[please add a precise citation page]</sup>

Because of his strong feelings about the issue, Watson wanted to return his German citation shortly after receiving it. When [[Cordell Hull|Secretary of State Hull]] advised him against that course of action, he gave up the idea until the spring of 1940. Then Hull refused advice, and Watson sent the medal back in June 1940.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Lengthening Shadow: The Life of Thomas J. Watson|last=Belden|first=Thomas and Marva|publisher=Little, Brown and Company, Inc.|year=1962|edition=1st|location=United States of America and Canada|pages=207|lccn=61-8065}}</ref> Dehomag's management disapproved of Watson's action and considered separating from IBM. This occurred when Germany declared war on the United States in December 1941, and the German shareholders took custody of the Dehomag operation.<ref name="Maney 2003" /> However, during [[World War II]], IBM subsidiaries in occupied Europe never stopped delivery of punch cards to Dehomag, and documents uncovered show that senior executives at IBM world headquarters in New York took great pains to maintain legal authority over Dehomag's operations and assets through the personal intervention of IBM managers in neutral [[Switzerland]], directed via personal communications and private letters, which confirms the close ties between the company’s headquarters and its subsidiaries throughout the war.<ref name="Black 2001" />