I may have missed it in the article, but it's worth mentioning that IBMs involvement was so substantial that they actually created a metal for him. > Thomas Wa

I may have missed it in the article, but it's worth mentioning that IBMs involvement was so substantial that they actually created a metal for him. > Thomas Watson was more than just a businessman selling boxes to the Third Reich. For his Promethean gift of punch card technology that enabled the Reich to achieve undreamed of efficiencies both in its rearmament program and its war against the Jews, for his refusal to join the chorus of strident anti-Nazi boycotters and isolators and instead open a commercial corridor the Reich could still navigate, for his willingness to bring the world’s commercial summit to Berlin, for his value as a Roosevelt crony, for his glitter and legend, Hitler would bestow upon Thomas Watson a medal — the highest it could confer on any non-German. > > The Merit Cross of the German Eagle with Star was created for Thomas Watson to 'honor foreign nationals who made themselves deserving of the German Reich.' It ranked second in prestige only to Hitler's German Grand Cross. Extract from IBM and the Holocaust by Edwin Black